Unruly Women of Paris

*
Unruly Women of Paris

Frederic Lix, "The Incendiaries: T h e Petroleuses a n d T h e i r Accomplices."
Monde Illustre, J u n e 3, 1871. Bibliotheque Nationale.
U N R U L Y WOMEN
OF PARIS
Images of the
Commune
GAY L . GULLICKSON
Cornell University Press

ITHACA AND LONDON
Copyright © 1996 by Cornell University
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts
thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing
from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press,
Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850.
First published 1996 by Cornell University Press.
Printed in the United States of America
© T h e paper in this book meets the minimum requirements of the

American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence
of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gullickson, Gay L.
Unruly women of Paris : images of the c o m m u n e / Gay L. Gullickson.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8014-3228-6 (cloth : alk. paper). — ISBN 0-8014-8318-2
(paper : alk. paper)
1. Paris (France)—History—Commune, 1871. 2. Women
revolutionaries—France—Paris—History—19th century. 3. Women's
rights—France. I. Title.
DC317.G85 1996
944.o8i'2—dc2o 96-19780
Contents
Illustrations
X1
Preface
1
Introduction: R e r e a d i n g the C o m m u n e
1
Synopsis: La C o m m u n e d e Paris 4
2
1. T h e W o m e n of March 18 4
2. R e m e m b e r i n g a n d Representing 57
T h e Symbolic Female Figure 74
120
4. T h e F e m m e s Fortes of Paris
5. Les Petroleuses *59
1
6. W o m e n o n Trial 91
7. T h e Unruly W o m a n a n d the Revolutionary City 218
22
Notes 9
Selected Bibliography
2
Index 77
vii
Illustrations
Frederic Lix, "The Incendiaries: T h e Petroleuses a n d

T h e i r Accomplices." Le Monde Illustre, J u n e 3, 1871 Frontispiece
1. T h e First Seal of the Republic 7
2. E u g e n e Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People on the Ramparts 8
22
3. M a p of Paris, 1871
4. "The National G u a r d ' s C a n n o n s o n the Butte M o n t m a r t r e . "
2
L 'Illustration, 1871 6
5. H o n o r e Daumier, Appalled by the Heritage 76
6. The Triumph of the Monarchy 84
7. H. Nerac, "The Virgin . . . Mad: T h e J o a n of Arc of the
C o m m u n e , S.G.D.G." 88
8. L e o n c e Scherer, "The D e f e n d e r s of the Sector." Souvenirs de
la Commune 91
9. Bertall, "Cantinieres." Les communeux, 1871 93
101
0. The Amazons of the Seine
1. Bertall, "La Colonelle." The Communists of Paris, 1871 106
2. Bertall, "La Barricade." Les communeux, 1871 107
13. The Taking of Paris (May 1871) 108
14. "The G r r r r e a t Female O r a t o r of the G r r r r a n d Amazon Club of
the C o m m u n e . " Paris sous la Commune 115
15. Frederic Lix, "Scenes of Paris—A Meeting of the W o m e n ' s Club
in the C h u r c h of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois." Le Monde Illustre,
1J
May 20, 1871 7
16. Alfred Le Petit, "Louise Michel." Les Contemporains (1880) 155
ix
x
Illustrations
17. Eugene Girard, The Emancipated Woman Shedding Light on

the World j g^
18. [Nevel], Untitled—petroleuse and child 185
19. Dubois, "A Petroleuse." Paris sous la Commune. 186
20. "The End of the C o m m u n e : Execution of a Petroleuse," The
Graphic, J u n e 10, 1871 jgg
21. Souvenir of 18j 1 220
22. Edouard Manet, Civil War (1871) 221
23. Paul Klenck, Line Petroleuse 222
Preface
I
f I believed in fate, I would believe I was destined to write this book.
W h e n I discovered the C o m m u n e in g r a d u a t e school (I m a d e this dis-
covery late since I was n o t a history major), I was fascinated by it. It did
n o t occur to me, however, that I m i g h t write o n the C o m m u n e . It was, af-
ter all, the early 1970s a n d a wealth of books a n d articles h a d just a p p e a r e d
for the centennial celebrations of the C o m m u n e ' s short life.
But the C o m m u n e c o n t i n u e d to a p p e a r in my life. W h e n I was inter-
viewing for my first j o b teaching history, the University of Louisville asked
m e (and all the o t h e r j o b candidates) to give a lecture o n the C o m m u n e .
Later, when I was teaching at Skidmore College, I used accounts of the
C o m m u n e to i n t r o d u c e my students to the politics of history. Finally, in the
s u m m e r of 1985, while I was working o n a n o t h e r topic, I requested a j o u r -
nal at the Bibliotheque Historique d e la Ville d e Paris, the title of which I
have long since forgotten. T h e issue I h a d requested was at the e n d o f t h a t
j o u r n a l ' s r u n , a n d it was b o u n d with the first two issues of a j o u r n a l o n the
history of medicine. T h u m b i n g t h r o u g h the second j o u r n a l , I came across
an article o n Georges C l e m e n c e a u , w h o was a physician as well as a states-
m a n . Illustrating the article was a picture of Louise Michel, the Red Virgin
of the C o m m u n e . Suddenly I knew I wanted to study the C o m m u n e . I
d a s h e d across the reading r o o m to ask J o a n Scott, w h o was also working
there, if she knew of anyone w h o was working o n the w o m e n of the Paris
C o m m u n e . She said no, and, w h e t h e r it was serendipity or fate, I was
l a u n c h e d o n ten years of research a n d writing.
As I worked o n this book, it c h a n g e d shape a n d focus. It began as a so-
XI
XII
Preface
cial history of women's lives and activities and m e t a m o r p h o s e d into a study

of the female figures that appear in accounts of the C o m m u n e . As my in-
terests changed, the book became m o r e complex, and the secondary lit-
eratures I n e e d e d to understand expanded. I f o u n d myself reading about
the history of caricature and iconography, Greek goddesses and Amazons,
theories of representation, and nineteenth-century psychology.
As I worked, I saw remnants and reminders of the C o m m u n e every-
where. In the Bibliotheque Nationale, and the Library of Congress, I was
s u r r o u n d e d by statues and paintings of goddesses, muses, and allegories.
At the Archives Historiques d e la Guerre at Vincennes, I was in the land of
the French army. In the world at large, political struggles that drew the at-
tention of the world r e m i n d e d me of the C o m m u n e . Chinese students
challenged their government and were killed, as the C o m m u n a r d s had
been. Russian citizens c o n f r o n t e d Soviet tanks and triumphed, as the Com-
m u n a r d s had believed they could. East G e r m a n citizens streamed through
the wall that had kept t h e m isolated f r o m West Germany and then hacked
it down, in a literal and symbolic protest that the C o m m u n a r d s who
b u r n e d the guillotine would surely have understood. Romanian revolu-
tionaries cut the Ceaucescu government's seal out of the national flag, an-
other symbolic gesture the C o m m u n a r d s would have cheered. T h e citizens
of Sarajevo and other Bosnian cities e n d u r e d the same sort of bombard-
ments and food shortages as the Parisians had during the Prussian and
French sieges of 1870 and 1871. T h e C o m m u n e began to seem archetyp-
al as well as particular.
In the years I have worked o n this book, I have acquired many debts. T h e
University of Maryland supported the book with research grants and a sab-
batical leave. My colleagues in French history and women's history listened
to conference papers and offered comments and advice. Feminist Studies 17
(Summer 1991): 2 4 0 - 6 5 and Gendered Domains, edited by Dorothy Helly
and Susan Reverby (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992), pp. 135-53,
published earlier versions of Chapter 5 . 1 reuse this material here with the
permission of the publisher, Feminist Studies, Inc., c / o Women's Studies De-
partment, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742.
At an early stage, J o a n Scott encouraged my desire to rewrite the Com-
m u n e ' s history through its female representations. She and Jim Gilbert,
J i m Lehning, and Claire Moses read complete drafts of the manuscript and
gave m e wise advice and moral support. Jim L e h n i n g discussed ideas and
visited the Mur des Federes with me. Claire Moses puzzled over obscure
French words and phrases and shared her knowledge of French feminism.
J e a n J o u g h i n welcomed me to the study of the C o m m u n e with a wonder-
Preface xiii
ful poster of a communarde. Joseph Ansell discussed caricature and art his-
tory. J o n Sumida answered questions about the French army. Marvin Bres-
low and Elaine Kruse e n d u r e d literary and linguistic questions. Carol Moss-
man helped m e with French translations. Elaine Kruse and Leslie Moch
read parts of the manuscript and sent references to the C o m m u n e as they
came across them, including the "fact" that Babette of Isak Dinesen's short
story "Babette's Feast" was a petroleuse. Peggy Darrow and Andrea
Tarnowski tracked down a d o c u m e n t at the Bibliotheque Nationale. Dar-
lene King cheerfully printed out seemingly endless copies of chapters and
helped me prepare the final draft of the manuscript. I am grateful to all of
them, and to my friends, family, colleagues, and students who, over the
years, offered moral support and asked me how the work was going and
not if I was finished yet. I think of this as George's book, since he slept on
my desk and r e m i n d e d me of the here and now while I worked on the past.
Like most of the cats of Paris, h e did n o t survive to see the end of the Com-
mune.
GAY L . GULLICKSON
Silver Spring, Maryland

I N T R O D U C T I O N
Rereading the Commune
n 1862 Jules a n d E d m o n d d e G o n c o u r t discovered t h a t their devoted
I servant Rose, w h o h a d t a k e n care of t h e m f o r twenty-five years h a d de-

ceived t h e m . T h e y t h o u g h t she h a d lived a quiet, chaste life, devoted
to their service, b u t she h a d n o t . She h a d h a d passionate affairs with m e n ,
h a d stolen m o n e y a n d provisions f r o m t h e G o n c o u r t b r o t h e r s to s u p p o r t
t h e m h a d r e n t e d r o o m s f o r t h e m , a n d h a d b o r n e two c h i l d r e n w h o died
In short, she h a d "kept m e n . " T h e discovery of Rose's secret life p r o v o k e d
in t h e G o n c o u r t s "a suspicion of t h e e n t i r e f e m a l e sex, . . . a h o r r o r ot t h e
duplicity of w o m a n ' s soul," which they believed " h a d e n t e r e d their m i n d s
f o r t h e rest of [their] lives." 1 T h e G o n c o u r t s were n o t a l o n e m their sus-
picion of w o m e n . Male r e f o r m e r s , socialists, a n d conservative essayists
alike d e b a t e d t h e ^ s t i o n of w o m a n ' s n a t u r e a n d w h e t h e r she s h o u l d
have t h e right to vote or even to w o r k / :
Paralleling m e n ' s obsession with w o m e n in t h e 1860s was a lively b o u r -
geois f e a r a b o u t t h e political a n d social a m b i t i o n s of t h e working class. T h i s
f e a r was especially acute in France, w h i c h h a d a history of revolution t h a t
s t r e t c h e d back to 1789 a n d a working class whose desires f o r a r e p u b l i c a n
f o r m of g o v e r n m e n t h a d b e e n t h w a r t e d in 1830 a n d 1848. T h e Revolu-
tion of 1848 was a s o u r c e of especially bitter m e m o r i e s f o r F r e n c h work-
ers since it h a d resulted in t h e d e a t h s of f i f t e e n h u n d r e d to t h r e e thou-
sand m e n a n d w o m e n a n d t h e d e p o r t a t i o n of f o u r t h o u s a n d . In t h e
following two d e c a d e s , as workers' living c o n d i t i o n s d e t e r i o r a t e d , employ-
m e n t fluctuated, a n d t h e b u i l d i n g projects of Louis N a p o l e o n a n d Georges
i o
Haussmann drew more and more workers into Paris, the bourgeoisie
watched nervously for signs of revolt.
In 1871 their suspicions of women and fears of the working class were
confirmed when Parisians once again defied the French government and
launched the revolution known as the Paris C o m m u n e . From its beginning
on March 18, when the working-class women and m e n of the Montmartre
district faced down the army over control of the city's cannons, to its end
ten weeks later, when that same army invaded the city and slaughtered
twenty-five thousand to thirty thousand people, the C o m m u n e was high
drama. The French army b o m b a r d e d the city, and the National Guard de-
fended it; troops and civilians paraded through the streets; a new govern-
ment was joyously inaugurated; the archbishop of Paris was taken hostage;
a guillotine was b u r n e d ; the Vendome Column was pulled to the ground;
churches were t u r n e d into political clubs; r u m o r s of betrayal and atroci-
ties circulated freely; and once the final battles had begun, the city burst
into flame. Foreign correspondents wired reports a r o u n d Europe and
across the Atlantic; editors wrote emotionally of events in Paris; caricatur-
, ists p r o d u c e d drawings; and Parisians and foreign residents of the city kept
diaries and wrote letters. Some c h a m p i o n e d the C o m m u n e ' s cause; others
' d e n o u n c e d it. No o n e remained neutral.
T h e r e is more to the C o m m u n e than spectacle and drama, however. Peo-
ple's reactions to it helped to create our political and cultural world. For
over a century, the C o m m u n e has been a touchstone for political theorists
and activists, for conservatives and reformers, and for our understanding
o [ c o n c e p t s ranging f r o m class and revolution to femininity and masculin-
ity Conservatives presented the C o m m u n e as a dangerous usurpation of
power by people who had n o respect for property, morality, or the legiti-
mately elected government of France and watched for it to h a p p e n again.
Radicals saw it as a tragically failed attempt to establish worker democracy
and vowed not to make what they regarded as the C o m m u n a r d s ' mistakes
again. From the successful Russian Revolution of 1917, to the failed 1989
revolution in T i a n a n m e n Square, those who have sought political change
have seen the world through the lens of the C o m m u n e and have looked
to it for inspiration, while those who have opposed change have weighed
the costs of repression. And everywhere, f r o m the end of the C o m m u n e to
the end of the cold war, people have oversimplified political complexities
and divided the world into irreconcilable political camps that parallel the
conflict between the C o m m u n e and the French government at Versailles.
T h e defining importance of the C o m m u n e for m o d e r n politics has
m a d e the writing of its history a compelling b u t tricky task for historians.
Virtually everyone has taken sides in telling its story. Its defenders have
Introduction 3
c o n d e m n e d the French government; its critics have maligned the revolu-

tionaries. As Stewart Edwards presciently n o t e d in the preface to his cen-
tenary history of the C o m m u n e , "Objectivity is n o t to be expected of mor-
tals writing their own story, the history of the events that have constructed
the world they live in." 3
Examples abound, b u t two should suffice. In his pro-Commune history,
Frank Jellinek describes the Versailles troops' actions during the semaine
sanglante, the final "bloody week" of fighting between the C o m m u n a r d s
and the army, as a "massacre," an "orgy," and an "uncontrolled slaughter,"
of the Communards, who "held out bravely" and, if they survived to be ar-
rested, e n d u r e d "torments." 4 In their college textbook, Paul MacKendrick
and his colleagues present a different view. Using the language of the cold
war, they refer to "Communards and sympathizers" who went on an "orgy
of slaughter and destruction" during the "so-called Bloody Week," and they
present a false chronology of events to explain and justify the national gov-
e r n m e n t ' s actions. 5 Two m o r e different views of the C o m m u n e are diffi-
cult to imagine.
T h e legacy of the C o m m u n e extends well beyond politics, however. As
Albert Boime has shown, it was a defining m o m e n t for two powerful gen-
erations of French artists, the Impressionists and the Post-Impressionists. 6
It was also, as this book seeks to demonstrate, a defining m o m e n t for West-
ern conceptualizations of gender, n o t least because it gave birth to the pow-
erful, evil, and imaginary petroleuses (female incendiaries) who were ac-
cused of setting fire to Paris during the semaine sanglante. Exercising a
powerful grip on the Western cultural imagination, the petroleuse became
the negative e m b o d i m e n t of the publicly active woman and cast a long
shadow over debates about women's rights and p r o p e r roles. Although n o
longer well known by name, versions of the petroleuse continue to shape
our understanding of the past and remain a touchstone for Western no-
tions of gender.
R e p r e s e n t a t i o n s of t h e C o m m u n a r d e s : An Overview
T h e images or representations of the communardes* in texts p r o d u c e d

during or immediately after the C o m m u n e vary widely. Some male Com-
m u n a r d s and C o m m u n e supporters portray t h e m positively. In the eyes of
* In French the female supporters of the C o m m u n e are communardes; male supporters, com-
munards. I use these terms as well as the English phrases "female Communards" and "male
Communards" when I am speaking of one or the other group. When I am speaking of women
and men together, I use the ungendered English term Communards.
i o
the pro-Commune journalist and historian Prosper-Olivier Lissagaray, they

were gallant young women, wounded lionesses, and the bravest of the mar-
tyrs who died on the barricades. 7 For f o r m e r military officer Sebastien
Commissaire, they were "idealistic girls"; for revolutionaries Felix Pyat and
Benoit Malon, both elected m e m b e r s of the C o m m u n e , they were "self-sac-
rificing mothers" who f o u g h t "to make their children free." 8
Negative views displayed more rhetorical ebullience. Conservative jour-
nalists and essayists vied with o n e a n o t h e r in hyperbole. Writing while the
final battles were still being f o u g h t in Paris, the anti-Commune journalist
Francisque Sarcey suggested that the women had b e e n m o r e ferocious and
more evil than the m e n because "their brains are weaker and their emo-
tions livelier." 9 Maxime Du Camp, whose four volumes o n the C o m m u n e
were designed to dissuade the French government from granting amnesty
to the convicted and exiled C o m m u n a r d s , t h o u g h t quite simply that the
women who "gave themselves to the C o m m u n e " were evil and insane. More
than the men, he declared, "the women excel in acts of cruelty that they
mistake for acts of courage." 1 0 Army Captain Beugnot referred to the com-
munardes as "mad dogs," 1 1 E d m o n d Lepelletier likened t h e m to a Greek
chorus crying for vengeance and urging on the m e n , 1 2 and Jules Claretie,
musing on the women's militant speeches and actions, wondered "from
what slime the h u m a n species is made." 1 3 Essayist Alexandre Dumas, fils,
refused to call the c o m m u n a r d e s women at all. Instead, h e used the term
femelles (a term ordinarily used for female animals), "out of respect for the
women whom they resembled—when they were dead." 1 4 And writer after
writer identified them as megaeras, amazons, furies, viragoes, jackals,
hecates, and madwomen, until these figures finally merged into o n e — t h e
horrific petroleuse.
Even supporters of the C o m m u n e f o u n d it difficult to accept all of
women's revolutionary actions and could muster only lukewarm support
for them. Gaston Da Costa, sentenced to death for his role in the Com-
mune, felt compelled, for example, to distinguish between "good" and
"bad" women and to distance himself f r o m the latter whom he, like critics
of the Commune, identified as prostitutes. 1 5 Jules Bergeret, an elected
m e m b e r of the C o m m u n e and o n e of its generals, o p i n e d f r o m a slightly
different perspective that women were destined "by their physical and
moral nature" to remain within the "domestic sphere" and that the furies
of the C o m m u n e had been driven into action n o t by a flaw in their nature
but by the failures of the French government. 1 6
These positive and negative images or representations of women were
part of a nineteenth-century discourse about woman's nature and appro-
priate female behavior. Women had b e e n a subject of discussion for cen-
Introduction 5
turies, 1 7 b u t industrialization h a d given the debate new urgency. As work

moved out of the h o m e and the scale of production increased in western
Europe and America, women f o u n d it h a r d e r and h a r d e r to integrate pro-
ductive work and child care. For working-class women, the choice between
caring for their children and contributing to the family's income usually
had to be resolved on the side of paid work. For bourgeois or middle-class
women, the dilemma was usually solved by withdrawal f r o m family-run
businesses and concentration on domestic and charitable activity. Histori-
ans have identified the latter pattern as both the separation of spheres
(productive and reproductive, or public and private) and the cult of do-
mesticity. 18
T h e separation of the bourgeois h o m e and workplace led to increasingly
dichotomized conceptualizations of male and female nature which, in
turn, were used to justify the c o n f i n e m e n t of bourgeois women to domes-
tic roles. 1 9 Bourgeois gender conceptualizations were never stable or un-
contested, but the view that might be labeled normative (or conservative)
characterized women as m o r e emotional, nurturing, altruistic, passive, vir-
tuous, and frail than men. These were the characteristics that suited
women for a protected life of domesticity and child rearing. Men, in con-
trast, were fitted for the rigors of work and politics because they were
stronger, less virtuous, more rational, more aggressive, and m o r e self-in-
terested.
C o n f r o n t e d with women whose behavior seemed m o r e aggressive than
passive, and who refused to remain in the domestic sphere, bourgeois m e n
reflected again on woman's nature. Some viewed it as unified; others saw
it as internally flawed; still others, as bifurcated. From the first perspective,
women like the c o m m u n a r d e s were perceived as having violated their na-
ture. T h e appeal of this theory was that it emphasized the unnaturalness,
h e n c e the evilness, of these women's behavior, although the ability of the
women to violate their feminine nature, as well as what they became when
they did so, was difficult to explain. In the latter two views, either aspects
of femininity, such as frailty of mind, m a d e women m o r e susceptible to evil,
or their very nature was divided between good and evil. Both theories ex-
plained the unruly woman's behavior. She h a d either succumbed to temp-
tation, or the evil side of her nature had overwhelmed the good. These the-
ories were logically m o r e consistent than the first, b u t they t u r n e d even the
most virtuous woman into a potential fury—an unsettling t h o u g h t for
bourgeois m e n in 1871.
Visible in these bourgeois versions of woman's nature are nineteenth-
century Christian depictions of Mary and Eve as the embodiments of good
and evil. 20 T h e iconographical presentation and meaning of Mary has
i o Unruly Women of Paris
shifted over the centuries, but she remains the u n i q u e e m b o d i m e n t of ma-

ternity and sinlessness. Eve, in contrast, is o n e of a host of powerful, dan-
gerous, and sinful women in Western culture, including the Amazons and
Sirens of ancient Greece, the biblical Delilah, and the witches of medieval
Europe. Mary might mediate for m e n with h e r son in heaven, b u t Eve and
her sisters remained a source of temptation and danger in real life. They
made it difficult for m e n to see publicly active, powerful women in non-
threatening terms. Thus, the communardes, who acted in most unladylike
ways, were m o r e likely to be represented negatively than positively, espe-
cially if the o p p o n e n t s of the revolution got to create the representations.
G e n d e r a n d Allegory
In Western culture, the representation of governments and philosophi-

cal concepts in female f o r m originated in the gender conventions of the
Greek language and the goddesses of classical Greek myths. In Greek and
other Indo-European languages, abstract n o u n s of virtue, knowledge, and
spirituality are commonly g e n d e r e d female. W h e n those abstractions are
personified, as they regularly have been, the gender of the word has car-
ried over to representation of t h e m in female form. T h e same is true of
countries, cities, and political philosophies. Athena, warrior goddess and
patroness of wisdom, and, to a lesser extent, the other Greek goddesses are
the models for the personifications of virtues and governments. 2 1
Nineteenth-century French painters and sculptors, like other Western
artists, followed the Greek pattern and commonly represented countries,
cities, and governments, as well as a b r o a d range of political philosophies—
liberty, equality, justice, victory, peace, war, fraternity, and glory, to n a m e a
f e W _ i n female form. (All these concepts bear the feminine grammatical
gender in French.) Only artists and other m e m b e r s of the cultural elite
were likely to know all the allegorical goddesses by their symbolic para-
phernalia, b u t some figures were commonly recognizable.
The effectiveness of the female allegorical figures d e p e n d e d on gender
conventions or stereotypes (positive and negative) and tne exclusion of hu-
man women f r o m the traits they embodied, conventions and exclusions
that would have m a d e it difficult for male figures to convey the same mes-
sages even if the g e n d e r of abstract n o u n s h a d b e e n masculine. 2 2 Female
figures radiated power when real women were presumed, or forced, to be
powerless; they represented governments that excluded women f r o m full
citizenship; they e m b o d i e d attributes that were t h o u g h t to reside more ful-
ly, if not entirely, in m e n than in w o m e n . 2 3
Introduction 7
FIGURE I . T h e First Seal of t h e Republic. Archives Nationales.
Men and women may derive different messages f r o m female represen-

tations, as other scholars have n o t e d . 2 4 Women are said to experience a
certain identification with the figures, which "interact with ideas about fe-
maleness and affect the way women act as well as appear"; for men, such
figures portray alterity. 25 Parisian women, however, appear to have re-
sponded to the allegorical goddesses and female personifications of the
French state, French governments (monarchy, empire, and republic), and
French cities in m u c h the same way as m e n did. Indeed, during the Com-
m u n e and the war with Prussia which immediately p r e c e d e d it, o n e of
women's favorite rallying places was the female allegorical statue repre-
senting the city of Strasbourg in the place de la Concorde. (The rescue of
Strasbourg was a Parisian cause celebre f r o m the time it was captured by
i o
FIGURE 2. E u g e n e Delacroix, Liberty leading the People on the Ramparts. Musee d u

Louvre.
the Prussians early in the war to its annexation to the new G e r m a n state at
the end of the war.)
During the French Revolution, Liberty emerged as the most important
of the allegorical political figures when she was chosen by the new gov-
e r n m e n t to represent the French republic in place of the king. O n the first
seal of the republic she stood, barefooted (a symbol of f r e e d o m f r o m re-
straint), holding a pike topped with a Phrygian cap (a symbol of f r e e d o m
since it was identified as the cap worn by freed Roman slaves) in h e r right
h a n d and a bundle of fasces (a symbol of unity consisting of a sheaf of rods
a m o n g which is b o u n d a hatchet) in her left h a n d (fig. 1). Liberty was even-
tually relieved of h e r double symbolic duty when a new figure, Marianne,
became the symbol of the French republic. Originating a m o n g counter-
revolutionaries as a symbol of what was wrong with the republic (rule by
commoners), Marianne, a girl of c o m m o n origins, gradually became the
positive e m b o d i m e n t of the republic f r o m which, had she been an actual
woman, she would have been politically excluded. 2 6
In 1831 o n e of the grandest and most famous examples of the use of fe-
Introduction 9
male allegory, Eugene Delacroix's painting Liberty Leading the People on the
Ramparts, was exhibited in Paris (fig. 2). A stirring representation of the
Revolution of 1830, Delacroix's Liberty combines features of the classical
Liberty and Marianne. This powerful goddess, clad in the garb of the work-
ing class and baring h e r right breast (her left breast is n o t entirely ex-
posed), is linked representationally to the Greek Amazons and the Virgin
Mary, and she can be seen, A n n e Hollander observes, as simultaneously
"holy, desirable, and fierce."27 Well-equipped with the symbols of f r e e d o m
and revolution—a Phrygian cap on h e r head, the French tricolor flag (in
this case, a symbol of the republic, although itwas also used by both French
empires) in o n e h a n d and a flintlock in the other, she strides radiantly for-
ward. For later generations she became the personification n o t only of the
T h r e e Glorious Days of the July Revolution b u t also of the Revolution of
1848 and of the Paris C o m m u n e .
Historians a n d t h e C o m m u n e
Dispassionate objectivity has often eluded historians of the C o m m u n e .

Many of the early histories, of course, were written by participants in and
eyewitnesses to events in Paris, and we might expect t h e m to take sides. But
twentieth-century historians' feelings about the Paris C o m m u n e and
women's actions have r u n almost as d e e p as those of the early chroniclers
and polemicists. Many have e c h o e d the j u d g m e n t s of earlier writers, call-
ing the women prostitutes and amazons and finding t h e m to have b e e n
mentally more unstable and excitable than the m e n , their behavior "worse"
or "more cruel." Even pro-Commune historians have often repeated the
negative female stereotypes and images they f o u n d in earlier histories and
primary texts. 2 8 O n e of the objectives of this book is to discover why this
has h a p p e n e d .
T h e answer lies n o t only in historians' political convictions b u t also, we
will see, in their failure to examine and understand how their primary texts
employ female representations. In uncritically accepting eyewitness de-
scriptions of the c o m m u n a r d e s and, to a lesser degree, of bourgeois
women as objective rather than ideological, historians have p e r p e t u a t e d
the cultural biases of their sources. Wittingly or not, they have played the
roles of witness and j u d g e of the C o m m u n e , of the communardes, and of
women in general.
Some recent historians, presumably motivated by a desire to provide a
more objective or accurate account of the C o m m u n e than earlier writers,
have eliminated the stereotypes and largely confined their accounts of
io Unruly Women of Paris
women to specific sections of the text. 2 9 Although this strategy constitutes

an important break with the partisan tradition, it has a high cost. It both
marginalizes women's roles in the C o m m u n e and eliminates the
petroleuses and other female figures who populate the early texts. Repre-
sentation of the c o m m u n a r d e s as increasingly d e m e a n e d and threatening
female figures was n o t marginal to contemporaries' or subsequent gener-
ations' understanding of the C o m m u n e . Far f r o m it. Such representations
embodied and represented the revolution for generations. Edith Thomas,
the author of the only book-length study of the c o m m u n a r d e s to date, im-
plicitly acknowledged the importance of these images when she titled h e r
1963 study Les "Petroleuses. " 3 0 T h e petroleuse and other female images
n e e d to be analyzed, as T h o m a s began to do, n o t eliminated, for elimi-
nating them impedes rather than improves o u r understanding of the Com-
mune.
This History
This history uses many of the same sources as other studies of the Com-
m u n e — c o n t e m p o r a r y newspapers; memoirs; letters; diaries; government
dossiers; statements of judges, prosecutors, witnesses, defendants, and de-
fense attorneys at the C o m m u n a r d s ' trials; and the National Assembly's fi-
nal report on the C o m m u n e ' s origins, participants, and policies. It focus-
es, however, n o t on governmental decisions and political philosophies but
on representation, meaning, and ideology.
Everyone who has written about, drawn, p h o t o g r a p h e d , or painted the
C o m m u n e , whether eyewitness or historian, has m a d e decisions, some
conscious, some not, about what to include and exclude. All narratives and
visual representations interpret as well as report. Historians'judgments are
a product of their personal experiences and political philosophies (what
we might think of as their context), as well as of the texts with which they
work. Their representations and interpretations, like those of the original
narratives and images, structure o u r understanding of the past.
In the lexicon of contemporary cultural history, this book is a study of
mentalites. It asks questions about how contemporaries and historians con-
strued women's participation in the C o m m u n e , the meaning they attached
to their activities, and the ideological purposes served by the caricatures,
stereotypes, and other representations of women. Answering these ques-
tions involves us in a process of rereading the history of the C o m m u n e and,
ultimately, retelling its story.
Historians may, and often do, regard events differently f r o m each other.
Introduction 26
Some of this difference is a p r o d u c t of the questions they ask as readers of

texts. This history is a case in point. By asking questions about meaning
and representation, it rereads the history and historiography of the Com-
m u n e and rewrites the story.
The questions of this book grow out of two f u n d a m e n t a l premises: first,
that the women and m e n of 1871 lived in a conceptually and politically
gendered universe that deeply influenced their choices, actions, and per-
ceptions of themselves and their world; and second, that the verbal and vi-
sual representations of women that appear in the texts of the C o m m u n e
are the key to understanding its meaning for its participants and for sub-
sequent generations.
Like biblical scholars whose analyses include prior interpretations, I
have subjected the writings of historians to analysis along with those of con-
temporaries. I have adopted this somewhat unusual p r o c e d u r e because
historians have n o t only constructed the m e a n i n g of the C o m m u n e for fu-
ture generations; they have j u d g e d it and proselytized for or against it just
as its supporters and o p p o n e n t s did. In this sense, the application of the
techniques of biblical exegesis may be peculiarly appropriate to a study of
the C o m m u n e , however avowedly antireligious it was. 31
T h e book advances a series of arguments: Examination of the female im-
agery in contemporary accounts of the C o m m u n e reveals that the strug-
gle between Paris and the French national government operating at Ver-
sailles was perceived and understood in g e n d e r e d terms. As writers and
artists created, employed, and manipulated female representations
(whether consciously or unconsciously), they assigned m e a n i n g to and
passed j u d g m e n t on the C o m m u n e and the individuals who supported or
opposed it. These images are the most powerful tool writers and artists,
contemporaries and historians, conservatives and liberals have had for
conveying political and moral judgments. They have structured o u r un-
derstanding of the C o m m u n e , continued to provoke emotional responses
to it, and created its cultural significance. They have d o n e so by drawing
our attention away f r o m complexity and pointing us toward j u d g m e n t .
Historians have perpetuated the initial j u d g m e n t s of the C o m m u n e by
repeating the female imagery of the primary texts and drawings. We can-
not understand either this historical event called the C o m m u n e or its sig-
nificance in Western politics and culture unless we examine these images
directly. W h e n we do, we find that the cultural practice of personifying and
identifying revolutions in female form, in combination with bourgeois
m e n ' s fascination with unruly woman like the communardes, m a d e the in-
vention of the powerful, deeply disturbing (and imaginary) petroleuse and
her historical identification with the C o m m u n e all b u t inevitable. Defeat-
ed, the C o m m u n a r d s were powerless to d e t h r o n e this new negative female

allegory or even to temper its ideological messages. As a result, in certain
discourses, the petroleuse came to represent not just the dangerous, un-
controlled woman b u t a world t u r n e d thoroughly upside down.
The book begins with a synopsis, which, like an opera program, provides
a brief narrative of the origins, history, and defeat of the C o m m u n e for
those who are unfamiliar with or have forgotten this period of French his-
tory. The chapters that follow might be t h o u g h t of as exploring the arias
and recitatives by and about women that appear in contemporary and his-
torical texts. Each chapter stands alone analytically and might be read sep-
arately, but read as a whole, the book proceeds chronologically and is a his-
tory of the C o m m u n e .
After the synopsis, the curtain rises on Paris in 1871. T h e o p e n i n g act
(Chapter 1) takes place on March 18. A variety of figures—the working-
class women of Montmartre, lower-class prostitutes, street urchins, nation-
al guardsmen, soldiers, generals, and the schoolteacher and dedicated rev-
olutionary Louise Michel—take the stage. T h r o u g h exploration of the
actions, motives, and voices given to these characters, this chapter demon-
strates how writer after writer attempted to prove that the C o m m u n e was
either good or evil from its beginning.
T h e second act (Chapter 2) introduces a new set of characters and is-
sues—those that lived o n in popular m e m o r y f r o m the time of the first
French Revolution in 1789. It examines the g e n d e r e d and class-based di-
visions of French society and the "memories" of the French Revolution
which colored conservative reactions to the C o m m u n e . Central a m o n g the
figures of the first revolution who appear again in accounts of the Com-
m u n e are the tricoteuses—the women who, according to tradition, knitted
at the foot of the guillotine as the enemies of the revolution were executed.
As we will see, by associating the communardes with the tricoteuses, conserv-
atives evoked memories of the Terror and c o n d e m n e d both revolutionary
women and the C o m m u n e through historical association.
In the third act (Chapter 3), the major female figures of this revolu-
tion—the innocent victim, the scandalous orator, the amazon warrior, and
the ministering angel—take center stage as we explore the truths about
women and revolution that contemporaries and historians have f o u n d in
the C o m m u n e . In contrast to these stereotyped figures, in the f o u r t h act
(Chapter 4), a more complex set of characters steps onto the stage—
Parisian women who wrote their own accounts of the revolution. In their
presentation of themselves and the C o m m u n e , four articulate w o m e n —
two revolutionaries and two conservative bourgeoises—reveal the cultural
Introduction 13
images and values they used to j u d g e the C o m m u n e and its supporters, and
to organize, justify, and make sense of their experiences.
T h e fifth act (Chapter 5) takes place during the final week of the Com-
mune, the semaine sanglante, when the women and m e n of Paris m o u n t e d
the barricades to d e f e n d their revolution against the French army. In this
chapter the most famous and powerful of the figures associated with the
C o m m u n e take the stage, the petroleuses, who were accused of maliciously
b u r n i n g Paris to the g r o u n d with their little bottles of kerosene.
In the sixth act (Chapter 6), the scene shifts to Versailles where thou-
sands of C o m m u n a r d s were taken in May to await trial. With stunning ra-
pidity, the army d e t e r m i n e d guilt and innocence and h a n d e d down sen-
tences to men, women, and children. From the prosecution's perspective,
Louise Michel and five working-class petroleuses were the most important
female defendants. Like the other women o n trial, they puzzled and an-
gered j u d g e s and observers n o t only because they had participated in the
C o m m u n e but because they represented aspects of femininity that the
bourgeoisie p r e f e r r e d n o t to see.
T h e conclusion of the book (Chapter 7) steps outside the narrative to
analyze the history that is revealed when we pay attention to the allegori-
cal, stereotypical, and h u m a n female figures who have always populated
the pages of the C o m m u n e ' s texts b u t whose meanings and messages have
not b e e n clearly seen before.
S Y N O P S I S
La Commune de Paris
O
n July 15, 1870, t h e Prussian c h a n c e l o r O t t o von Bismarck's two-
year-old p l a n to m a n e u v e r t h e F r e n c h e m p e r o r N a p o l e o n III into
declaring war o n Prussia finally s u c c e e d e d over t h e issue of w h o
would ascend to t h e vacant Spanish t h r o n e . N a p o l e o n ' s ill-fated decision
to c h a l l e n g e Prussia c a t a p u l t e d F r a n c e into a year of warfare, civil strife,
political e x p e r i m e n t a t i o n , a n d tragedy. T h e e m p e r o r a n d a h u n d r e d thou-
sand F r e n c h t r o o p s were c a p t u r e d less t h a n two m o n t h s a f t e r t h e war be-
gan. W o r d of t h e army's d e f e a t a n d N a p o l e o n ' s c a p t u r e r e a c h e d t h e
Parisian public o n S e p t e m b e r 3. Bv t h e af t e r n o o n of t h e f o u r t h , crowds of
Parisians h a d invaded t h e Legislative Assembly m e e t i n g a n d t h e n m o v e d
o n to t h e H o t e l d e Ville, t h e Parisian city hall, w h e r e a n e w r e p u b l i c a n gov-
e r n m e n t was d e c l a r e d . 1
A crowd of citizens a n d n a t i o n a l g u a r d s m e n g r e e t e d t h e n e w govern-
m e n t with enthusiasm. H e r e was t h e p e a c e f u l revolution Parisians, consis-
tently m o r e r e p u b l i c a n t h a n t h e r u r a l F r e n c h , h a d l o n g e d for. P e o p l e sang
t h e "Marseillaise." Crowds circulated in t h e streets. Vendors sold blue,
white, a n d r e d tricolor cockades ( t h e colors of t h e F r e n c h republics) a n d
r e d r i b b o n s (the color of revolution). T h e statues in t h e place d e la Con-
c o r d e were d e c o r a t e d with small r e d flags. R e d c r e p e f l u t t e r e d f r o m t h e
lampposts. T h e enthusiasm of t h e Parisians s e e m e d u n b o u n d e d . Only t h e
s u p p o r t e r s of t h e n o w - d e f u n c t e m p i r e a n d t h e most radical social revolu-
tionaries f o u n d t h e scene disturbing, t h e f o r m e r b e c a u s e it m e a n t t h e e n d
of their h o p e s , t h e latter because they f e a r e d t h a t t h e new r e p u b l i c would
b e hijacked a n d b e t r a y e d by t h e Right.
!4
Synopsis J
5
T h e Parisian deputies to the Legislative Assembly f o r m e d a provisional

governing body p e n d i n g new national elections, and General Trochu, who
had divorced himself f r o m the fate of the empire when word of its defeat
reached Paris, agreed to preside over the new government. Many h o p e d
that the Prussians' quarrel with the e m p e r o r would now end and an
armistice be established. W h e n this did n o t h a p p e n , Parisians t u r n e d to
the task of preparing the city to resist the advancing Prussians. Trees were
cut down for barricades and fuel, bridges over the Seine were blown up,
houses that could shelter the enemy were destroyed, and an army of m e n
trained to defend the city. O n September 18 the siege of Paris began. T h e
city was encircled, cut off f r o m the outside world, and its citizens h u n k e r e d
down to e n d u r e what t u r n e d out to be five months of bitter cold, hunger,
disease, and finally b o m b a r d m e n t . While they waited for the provincial
armies to come to their aid, virtually every able-bodied Parisian man who
was not already a m e m b e r of the a r m y j o i n e d the National Guard and pre-
pared to fight the Prussians.
Paris never did surrender. Indeed, the city held out far longer and
through far worse conditions than most had imagined possible while the
political leaders and provincial armies tried and failed to come to its res-
cue. Finally, at the end o f j a n u a r y , the Government of National Defense ac-
cepted Bismarck's armistice terms and s u r r e n d e r e d the city to the Prus-
sians. T h e French hurriedly held elections for a National Assembly, which
in turn selected the elderly conservative statesman Adolphe Thiers to lead
the government. O n February 26, 1871, Thiers accepted the Prussian
peace terms, ceding most of Alsace, one-third of Lorraine, and the city of
Metz to the new G e r m a n state, agreeing to pay 5 billion francs in indem-
nity, and permitting a triumphal march of Prussian troops through Paris.
Appalled at the government's capitulation to Bismarck's terms and an-
gered that the Prussian troops who h a d starved and b o m b a r d e d Paris were
to be allowed to humiliate the city with a triumphal march, the Parisians
grew daily more suspicious of the government's motives. As the date of the
Prussian entry into Paris approached, the city seemed o n the verge of hys-
teria. A r m e d crowds r o a m e d the streets day and night. Working-class
neighborhoods like Montmartre, Belleville, and La Chapelle barricaded
themselves. C a n n o n s that had b e e n left in the zone to be occupied by the
Prussians were dragged by h a n d to the hills of Paris for safekeeping. T h e
Parisian newspapers unanimously called for calm and a n n o u n c e d on the
twenty-eighth that they would not publish again until the Germans had left
the city. Many feared that the Prussians were looking for any provocation
that would give them an opportunity to impose even harsher peace terms
or to pillage the city.
On March 1, the Prussians entered Paris through the Bois de Boulogne,

marched u p to the Arc de T r i o m p h e and then down the Champs-Elysees
to the place de la Concorde and the Louvre. They were greeted with an-
gry silence and closed shops. Well versed in political symbolism, the
Parisians shielded the eyes of the statues representing the cities of France
in the place de la Concorde with black hoods and flew black flags f r o m the
buildings along the parade route. Only a small crowd watched the troops
march through the streets. T h e few shopkeepers who remained o p e n to
serve the Prussians were punished afterward with broken windows and fur-
niture. Prostitutes who ventured into the Prussian camps were scolded and
whipped. Engaging in their own symbolic theater, the G e r m a n troops
marched directly t h r o u g h the Arc de Triomphe on their way out of the city
two days later, celebrating their triumph over the country whose earlier vic-
tories o n G e r m a n soil were enshrined on the Arc. T h e French, in turn,
built a massive bonfire at the Arc to purify the soil the Germans had dese-
crated.
After the Prussians had left the city (but n o t their e n c a m p m e n t s a r o u n d
its'perimeter), relations between the newly elected National Assembly
(composed largely of political conservatives and royalists f r o m the
provinces) and working-class, republican Paris deteriorated rapidly. Ig-
noring the city's precarious economic condition, the assembly lifted the
wartime moratorium on the sale of goods being held at the state-run pawn-
shop; a n n o u n c e d that landlords could immediately claim all back rents
due them; and m a d e all debts d u e with interest within the next four
months. Working-class Parisians faced the imminent sale of the furniture,
clothing, and tools they had pawned during the siege and still could not
r e d e e m because they had n o jobs and n o money and, along with small
merchants, were threatened with immediate eviction.
" In addition, the national government t u r n e d what h a d b e e n regarded
as a patriotic right into a dole by declaring that only those national guards-
men who could demonstrate economic n e e d would continue to receive pay.
It also suppressed radical newspapers, sentenced the working-class leaders
Auguste Blanqui and Gustave Flourens to death in absentia for their role
in a brief flurry of revolutionary activity the previous October during the
Prussian siege, and voted to move the National Assembly (which had been
meeting in Bordeaux since the siege of Paris began) to Versailles, rather
than back to Paris, thereby decapitalizing the city.
/ Finally, in a poorly p l a n n e d and subsequently much-debated decision,
I Thiers sent French army troops in the early hours of March 18, 1871, to
remove the cannons and other large guns the National Guard h a d dragged
to the hills of Paris in February. W h e t h e r the military operation was sim-
Synopsis J
17
ply badly handled or was designed to provoke a revolt so the government

could crush and disarm the workers and national guardsmen is unclear. In
any case, the predawn raid on the cannons was detected when the gov-
e r n m e n t failed to send horses to pull the heavy guns away. While the sol-
diers at Montmartre and other points waited for horses, they fraternized
with the people, and military order was lost. Thiers and the rest of the na-
tional government withdrew f r o m Paris to Versailles, and late in the day two
French generals were killed. T h e steps that would lead to the establishment
of a separate government in Paris (the Paris C o m m u n e ) and a second siege
of Paris, this time by provincial French troops, had b e e n taken. 2
With the withdrawal of the army, ministers, and government agencies
from Paris, the leaders of the political Left scrambled to catch u p with the
crowd. Failing to understand that what they faced was civil war, the National
Guard Central Committee, arrondissement mayors, and Parisian deputies
debated options and then instituted self-rule for Paris, a n n o u n c e d citywide
elections for March 22, postponed them to Sunday, March 26, and tried to
negotiate with the government in Versailles to reach a peaceful solution to
the crisis. O n March 28 the Paris C o m m u n e officially came into existence
(although the term is commonly used to refer to the entire period of the
revolution f r o m March 18 to May 28) with the inauguration of the newly
elected municipal council at the Hotel de Ville.
T h e inaugural ceremony demonstrated the Parisians' mastery of politi-
cal pageantry and symbolism. Civilians h u n g out of windows and thronged
the square to watch the spectacle. Red, the color of revolution, was every-
where. Red sashes d r a p e d the shoulders of the newly elected members of
the C o m m u n e and the outgoing m e m b e r s of the Central Committee, red
streamers h u n g f r o m the windows, a red flag flew from the roof, and a red
scarf d r a p e d a bust of Marianne, the symbolic representation of the French
republic. 3 Bayonets glinted in the sun, d r u m s beat, bands played, and the
crowd sang the revolutionary French a n t h e m the "Marseillaise" and the
"Chant d u depart." C a n n o n s roared a salute along the Seine while the
National Guard battalions, and regular army soldiers, artillerists, and
marines, who had sworn loyalty to the C o m m u n e , m a r c h e d endlessly
across the square and down the streets, two h u n d r e d thousand strong, their
banners topped by Phrygian caps.
O n the surface, the situation looked hopeful. T h e elections had b e e n a
success. T h e r e was news of sympathetic uprisings in other cities. 4 T h e trash
had b e e n collected; the streets were cleaner than they had been since the
beginning of the Prussian siege; and the city's fountains splashed water.
Only the city's cats were missing, as the Reverend Mr. William Gibson ob-
served, having been t u r n e d into "rabbit" d u r i n g the siege. 5 It seemed pos-
sible as the Cn du Peupk declared, that "the d r u m s of Santerre will never

roll again n o r rifles gleam f r o m the windows of o u r C o m m u n a l Hotel de
Ville nor the Place de Greve be stained with blood." 6 T h e democratically
elected C o m m u n e began to u n d o the decrees of the National Assembly
and sought to negotiate with Thiers for Parisian h o m e rule.
Below the surface lay a grimmer reality. D e s p i t e t h e relatively modest
Parisian political demands, Thiers and the N a t i o n a l Assembly refused to
negotiate and p r e p a r e d to d o battle. In the beginning, neither side was well
p r e p a r e d for war and virtually all historians have agreed that if the Com-
m u n e h a d m a r c h e d u p o n Versailles in the first few days of its existence, it
could have defeated the badly demoralized army. T h e leaders oT the Na-
tional Guard could n o t be certain of that, however, n o r could they be sure
that the Prussians, who still ringed the eastern side of Paris, would remain
neutral While the C o m m u n e hesitated, Thiers began to build an army that
would remain loyal to its officers (as it h a d n o t o n the eighteenth) and
could be used to humiliate the city that had challenged his authority.
Loyalty was n o t a problem for the National Guard, b u t preparation and
leadership were, and even as talk of a march o n Versailles increased in the
city intelligent people worried about the ability of the guard to launch and
win an offensive battle. O n Palm Sunday, April 2, a scant five days after the
elected C o m m u n a l Council was sworn in, the Versailles troops attacked the
suburb of Courbevoie, p u s h e d the National Guard back, and captured the
bridge over the Seine into the faubourg (suburb) of Neuilly. T h e war had
b e g u n O n April 3 the National Guard m a r c h e d determinedly toward Ver-
sailles, only to fall into a trap set by the Versailles. Versailles was relieved
by its victory; Paris, horrified. People p o u r e d into the streets. National
guardsmen beat the call to arms and dragged their c a n n o n s to the western
walls. Thousands of m e n d e m a n d e d to march o n Versailles; women pro-
posed to m a r c h in front of them.
All night long, guardsmen filed spontaneously out of the city, without or-
ganization, without provisions, without even f o r m i n g u p in their battal-
ions, convinced that the soldiers would n o t fire o n their fellow country-
m e n T h e great offensive the Parisians h a d wanted since the beginning of
the Prussian attack h a d come to pass. Women rallied at the place de la Con-
corde and waited at the city gates for word of the battle.
By evening it was clear that enthusiasm and n u m b e r s h a d n o t b e e n
e n o u g h for victory. Carts of dead and dying m e n t r u n d l e d into the city. T h e
army h a d remained loyal to its commanders, fired o n the guardsmen, and
routed them. Thiers was n o t inclined to be gracious in victory. O n April 6
h e increased the pressure o n Paris by b o m b a r d i n g the western (ironically,
the bourgeois) sections of the city. For the next seven weeks, c a n n o n and
•r I
J1
Synopsis 9
artillery fire trapped the residents of Neuilly in their homes, supplied back-
ground noise for life in Paris, and provided entertainment for the intrepid
who walked u p the Champs-Elysees to watch the battle.
In a terrible foreshadowing of things to come, the Versailles troops exe-
cuted some of their captured prisoners on April 3 ä n d 4, including two Na-
tionaf Guard generals, and allowed others to b e abused by crowds in Ver-
sailles. In retaliation, the C o m m u n e took a variety of hostages, including
the archbishop of Paris and several priests, and threatened to execute t h e m
if Versailles continued to kill its C o m m u n a r d prisoners, a threat it did n o t
carry out until May 24, during the final battle for the control of Paris.
As the war continued, the C o m m u n e debated and passed legislation that
has e a r n e d it a place a m o i ^ f t f ^ S S t r a a i c S ^ Pet-
ty fines for rule violations in factories were eliminated; the pay for legisla-
tors was set at the daily wage for ordinary workers; and the ICH",Is, furniture,
and clothing people h a d pawned during the Prussian siege were r e t u r n e d
to their owners free of charge. Night baking was abolished at the request
of the bakers. Separation of church and state was declared, and education
was secularized. T h e widows (legally married or not) and children of m e n
wTio died "defending the rights of Paris" were adopted by the city. Women s
work and wages were studied and meetings were held to discuss plans for
improving women's education.
Working-class Parisians m o u r n e d the d e a d (by May 8, five h u n d r e d h a d
died in the struggle for control of Fort Issy alone), avoided the wealthier
areas of the city that were within range of the Versailles artillery, followed
the progress of the war, and carried o n remarkably n o r m a l lives u n d e r the
circumstances. Following in the footsteps of the revolutionaries of 1789,
people attended nightly political debates in churches. Aware of the power
of symbolic actions, the C o m m u n e signaled its politics by flying the red flag
of revolution, b u r n i n g a guillotine in front of the statue of Voltaire (to dis-
avow the Terror of the first French Revolution), pulling down the Vendome
Column (a symbol of despotism and militarism to republicans like the
Communards, since it glorified the imperial aspects of Napoleon I's rule
and was the site of an annual parade of Napoleon Ill's imperial troops),
and razing Thiers's house. Freemasons, in the first public demonstration
in their history, m a r c h e d through the city to show their support for the
C o m m u n e . As the military situation worsened, however, liberal principles
were sorely tested, and the C o m m u n a l Council, like its conservative pre-
decessors, shut down the opposition press.
Relegated to the margins of formal politics by a "universal" suffrage that
excluded them, women f o u n d their own ways to express their support for
the C o m m u n e . Neighborhood groups f o r m e d vigilance committees and
prepared to defend the barricades. Female orators d e n o u n c e d the gov-

e r n m e n t and the National Guard for cowardice and ineptitude. Female
cooks, water carriers, and medical assistants accompanied the battalions of
the National Guard into battle. Wives, sisters, and daughters carried food
and drink to the defenders of the city walls. Women workers m a n u f a c t u r e d
gun cartridges, uniforms, and sacks to be filled with sand for the barri-
cades. Andre Leo (Leodile Champseix), the female editor of the Com-
m u n e newspaper La Sociale, warned the C o m m u n e and National Guard
leaders about the dangers of alienating women's support. Louise Michel,
the C o m m u n e ' s most passionate supporter, j o i n e d the National Guard in
battle. Elizabeth Dmietrieff, a Russian emigree, and other members of the
International Working Men's Association f o u n d e d the Union of Women
for the Care of the Wounded and the Defense of the C o m m u n e .
T h e wealthier part of the bourgeoisie was unsympathetic to t h e revolu-
tion f r o m the beginning, believing, with Edixiond de Goncourt, that when
the "men f r o m the very bottom" of the social ladder spoke of liberty, equal-
ity, and fraternity, they had "the enslavement or death of the u p p e r classes"
in mind. 8 T h e international and non-Parisian French press consistently b u t
inaccurately referred to the C o m m u n a r d s as "Communists." Boijlgsms
m e n who h a d j o i n e d the National Guard during the Prussian siege aban-
d o n e d their units and fled Paris to avoid being forced to serve the Com-
m u n e . Meanwhile, in Versailles Thiers and his generals continued to train
the army and p r e p a r e d to teach the Parisians "a lesson." 9
As the war continued, conditions in the isolated city deteriorated, dis-
agreements a m o n g its leaders multiplied, and fears of an invasion esca-
lated. T h e propaganda disseminated by Versailles h a d convinced people
outside oTParis that the C o m m u n e , far f r o m being a defepsfi of the re-
public, was a threat to it. If this revolution were allowed to succeed, the gov-
e r n m e n t warned, it would institute a new reign of terror. N o o n e outside
Paris, either in the provinces or in other countries, came to the city's as-
sistance. Still, most Parisians f o u n d it impossible to believe that French
troops would actually invade the city and kill its citizens.
O n Sunday evening, May 21, the unthinkable occurred. T h e Versailles
army entered Paris through an u n g u a r d e d gate. Having b e e n told to take
n o prisoners, the troops instituted a seemingly endless nightmare of street
fighting followed by the surrender and then the execution of the Com-
m u n e ' s defenders. T r a p p e d in the city by the Versailles troops o n o n e side
and the Prussians o n the other, the C o m m u n a r d s retreated f r o m barricade
to barricade. As they fell back, some set fires to prevent the army's pursuit.
Others, in anger and desperation b u r n e d the Tuileries Palace, Hotel d e
Ville, and other buildings. Still others executed some of the C o m m u n e ' s
J
Synopsis 21
hostages, including the city's archbishop. Rumors circulated that female

incendiaries, called petroleuses, had set the fires, and the bourgeoisie, an-
gered at the disruption the C o m m u n e had caused in their lives and fear-
ful for their property, readily believed them.
Thousands of Parisians died d e f e n d i n g the barricades and o n the
Parisian killing fields of the Pare Monceau, the L u x e m b o u r g Gardens, the
Ecole Militaire, and the Pere-Lachaise Cemetery. Machine guns made the
killing fast and easy although the victims did n o t always die immediately.
Women and children as well as adult m e n m e t this summary 'justice." By
the end of the week the conquering Versailles troops h a d lost fewer .than
nine h u n d r e d ; the C o m m u n a r d s , m o r e than twenty thousand. At least
thirty-eight thousand more were m a r c h e d to Versailles, exposed to the
taunts, insults, and physical assaults of bourgeois women and men. Those
who survived the march (and many did not, for soldiers dispatched those
who walked too slowly or collapsed f r o m exhaustion, as well as those who
displeased them) faced m o n t h s of incarceration and investigation.
T h e courts martial that tried the C o m m u n a r d s assumed the defendants
were guilty and b r o u g h t t h e m swift j u d g m e n t . Ten thousand were convict-
ed (a thousand in absentia); twenty-three were executed; forty-five hun-
dred w e r e incarcerated in French prisons; and forty-five h u n d r e d more
were d e p o r t e d to New Caledonia. 1 0 Like the prisoners' march to Versailles,
the voyage to the South Pacific was deadly for many. O n board ship, the
prisoners were confined to large cages and g u a r d e d by machine guns.
Some who survived the j o u r n e y were incarcerated with c o m m o n criminals;
others were left to fend for themselves in the inhospitable climate, terrain,
and culture.
As would be the case a quarter of a century later in the Dreyfus Affair,
the justness of the trials and sentences for people who, in many cases, were
accused only of political crimes raised questions that could n o t be perma-
nently ignored. Finally in 1880, when the republicans gained control of
the National Assembly and the presidency of France, a general amnesty was
granted to the C o m m u n a r d s , and they were allowed to return f r o m exile.
Greeted enthusiastically by the French Left that had worked for their re-
turn for almost a decade, the thousands who had suffered in French pris-
ons, languished in exile in London, Switzerland, or Brussels, or e n d u r e d
the hardships and futility of life in New Caledonia resumed their lives and
their political interests.
T h e C o m m u n e ' s cultural and political significance did n o t end with its
defeat or even with amnesty for its convicted supporters. T h e deaths of
both the C o m m u n a r d s and the hostages during the semaine sanglante, the
last, bloody week of fighting in May, m a d e the C o m m u n e a central refer-
J
Synopsis 23
ence p o i n t for b o t h the Left a n d t h e Right. For the Right, it provided a

warning a b o u t t h e d a n g e r s of working-class revolt. For t h e Left, it provided
b o t h a positive a n d a negative e x a m p l e of how to c o n d u c t a revolution.
(Lenin studied it carefully.) 1 1 T h e M u r des F e d e r e s (Wall of t h e C o m m u -
nards) in the Pere-Lachaise Cemetery, 1 2 where, l e g e n d has it, the Com-
m u n e ' s last d e f e n d e r s perished, b e c a m e a place of pilgrimage for admirers
of the C o m m u n e r a n g i n g f r o m F r e n c h workers to would-be revolution-
aries f r o m all over t h e world (fig. 3)-
C H A P T E R O N E
The Women of March 18
h e revolution known as the Paris C o m m u n e b e g a n with a day of
T high d r a m a in the working-class n e i g h b o r h o o d s of Pans, a n d

w o m e n played leading parts. Street theater s e e m e d to b e their meti-
er a n d as we will see, they are o f t e n credited with the Parisians' success m
defeating the army in the m o r n i n g a n d b l a m e d for the deaths of two gen-
erals in the late a f t e r n o o n , even t h o u g h they h e l d n o g u n s a n d fired n o
shots In this chapter, I e x a m i n e the representations of w o m e n that a p p e a r
in the accounts of March 18 a n d analyze why they have b e e n so i m p o r t a n t
in the telling of the C o m m u n e ' s story.
N o n e of the chroniclers of these events wanted us, their readers, to re-
main neutral, a n d all have employed depictions or representations of
w o m e n to gain o u r allegiance. I n d e e d , such representations have played
critical roles in the telling of the C o m m u n e ' s story. As the writers (and
their readers) r e p r e s e n t w o m e n , they pass j u d g m e n t o n t h e m and, by ex-
tension o n the C o m m u n e , which is, by the laws of metonymy, only as good
or as b a d as its w o m e n . Representations of the street w o m e n of Mont-
m a r t r e - t h e m a j o r female actors o n March 1 8 - a r e particularly i m p o r t a n t
since they p r o g r a m us f o r what is to c o m e . T h e y establish the guilt or in-
n o c e n c e of the C o m m u n e f r o m the outset.
T h e Revolution Begins
In the early h o u r s of March 18, soldiers slipped silently t h r o u g h the cold,
d a m p streets of Paris f r o m concentration points o n the Champs-Elysees
!24
The Women of March 18 25
and the place de la Concorde toward the hills of Paris. Only o n e incident
m a r r e d their movement through the night. A National Guard sentry who
was standing watch challenged their approach and was shot in o n e of the
small streets of Montmartre. By five o'clock in the m o r n i n g troops had oc-
cupied the heights of Montmartre and taken control of the cannons and
machine guns stored there by the National Guard. T h e m e n who had been
guarding them were locked in the Tour Solferino, while the people of
Montmartre slept b e h i n d closed shutters and blinds. Meanwhile, other
troops h a d taken control of the city's major squares and the guns parked
at the place Puebla, the buttes Chaumont, and Belleville on the eastern
side of the city. As dawn broke, the army seemed to have captured the city's
cannons and machine guns f r o m its citizens and national guardsmen with
a single shot. But the day h a d barely begun.
From two o'clock to six o'clock that m o r n i n g the struggle for control of
t h e c a n n o n s was a male drama. T h e actors were soldiers, generals, and a
few early-rising guardsmen who were captured as they left their homes and
tried to rally their fellows. After six o'clock, however, women and other
civilians became central players in the struggle for the cannons and, ulti-
mately, for control of the city.
T h e most significant events of the day took place at Montmartre. Lying
on the n o r t h e r n edge of the city, the steep hill of Montmartre was climbed
by narrow, twisting roads and paths. It had b e e n incorporated into the city
only in i 8 6 0 , and the top of the hill was still covered with o p e n fields and
only an occasional building. T h e base and lower part of the hill were pop-
ulated by working-class m e n and women. T h e arrondissement (coinciden-
tally, the eighteenth) was a center of political and economic radicalism.
T h e n e w l y e l e c t e d c o n s e r v a t i v e n a t i o n a l g o v e r n m e n t was suspicious o f t h e
republican city in general, b u t it was especially nervous about areas like

Montmartre where workers lived and discussed politics.
To make matters worse, f r o m the government's point of view, Mont-
martre was also the location of the largest collection of heavy guns—nine-
ty-one cannons, seventy-six machine guns, and four other large guns—
which the National Guard had dragged u p the hill by h a n d when it
discovered t h e m in the part of Paris that the Prussians were to occupy on
March 1.1 O n the night of March 17-18, the guns stood in rows o n two
open fields, o n e at the top of the hill, the other o n a lower plateau (fig. 4).
Nearly four thousand troops were dispatched to Montmartre in the ear-
ly hours of March 18. General F.J. Paturel directed his m e n to occupy the
field at the top of the hill; General Claude Lecomte's troops moved to the
main g u n park o n the lower plateau o n the east side. Smaller groups of
troops occupied the Tour Solferino near the summit (where they would
FIGURE 4. "The National G u a r d ' s C a n n o n s o n t h e Butte M o n t m a r t r e . " L'lllustralion,
1871. Musee Carnavalet.
h o l d prisoners d u r i n g the morning), strategic intersections a n d streets,

a n d the c h u r c h of Saint-Pierre (to prevent the National G u a r d f r o m using
its bells to raise an alarm) n e a r the base of the hill. 2
Having successfully taken control of the lightly g u a r d e d guns, the troops
k n o c k e d down the stone walls and filled in the t r e n c h e s that s u r r o u n d e d
the g u n parks while they waited for the horses that were to move the heavy
guns. For reasons that r e m a i n obscure, the horses did n o t arrive f o r sever-
al h o u r s a n d t h e n only in i n a d e q u a t e n u m b e r s . Lacking horses, soldiers
moved several of the guns by h a n d , b u t they were heavy a n d the hill was
steep, a n d the soldiers h a d gotten n o f a r t h e r t h a n the base of the hill w h e n
the residents of M o n t m a r t r e b e g a n to awaken.
Accustomed to rising early to fetch f o o d for breakfast, the w o m e n of
M o n t m a r t r e are o f t e n credited with being the first to discover the troops
in their midst. A r o u n d six o'clock as they raised the blinds a n d o p e n e d the
shutters of their h o m e s a n d shops, they p e e r e d o u t o n t o the scene of the
g o v e r n m e n t ' s t r i u m p h . Although the troops h a d n o t arrived in utter si-
lence, what noise they h a d m a d e h a d failed to alarm the city, which h a d
seen so many troops a n d so many false alarms in the past six m o n t h s .
What had b e e n ignored during the night galvanized attention when

dawn began to break. As the people of Montmartre filtered out into the
streets, staring and gesturing at the troops, the tenor of the day began to
change. Already suspicious of the national government, the people con-
cluded almost immediately that they were witnessing a royalist coup. As the
soldiers waited for the horses, opposition to the imagined c o u p d'etat de-
veloped.
As the people of Montmartre were discovering the soldiers in their
streets, Georges Clemenceau, the mayor of the eighteenth arrondisse-
ment, was pulling on his clothes and rushing through the dark streets to
the butte. 3 Awakened about six by o n e of his colleagues in the mairie,
Clemenceau was both alarmed and angry that the national government
had decided to act without informing him in advance. For days, h e and
other arrondissement mayors had b e e n working to arrange the r e t u r n of
the cannons and machine guns to the national government without mili-
tary action. Now the government's actions would make him look like a du-
plicitous government accomplice, as indeed the people quickly concluded
he was. 4
W h e n Clemenceau arrived at the butte Montmartre, he f o u n d the at-
mosphere curiously relaxed. O n the lower part of the hill, h e later report-
ed, "on the doorsteps and in f r o n t of all the still-closed shops m e n in shirt
sleeves were chatting and preserving a completely calm attitude." Higher
up, "a great many civilians . . . chatted with the soldiers, several of whom
had laid their rifles down on the pavement to go into the bakers' shops." 5
So began the fraternization of the troops with the people of Paris and the
undoing of the government's plan.
W h e n Clemenceau f o u n d General Lecomte on the eastern plateau, h e
told him that h e was "surprised and disappointed" that the government
had decided to use force without warning the mayors and u r g e d him to
move the guns and leave as quickly as possible. H e then p r o c e e d e d to the
house at 6, rue des Rosiers, 6 where about a h u n d r e d prisoners, including
the w o u n d e d guardsman Turpin, were being held. Clemenceau, a physi-
cian, examined the critically injured man, dressed his wound, and decid-
ed that he should be moved to a hospital where he could be cared for and
made more comfortable. At Turpin's side were two women from the quar-
ter, a National Guard cantiniere and Louise Michel, who would become the
most famous of the communardes. (Cantinieres provided food and water
for military groups like the National Guard.)
Michel had climbed the hill to the rue des Rosiers in the evening to de-
liver a message to the National Guard and had then spent the night. When
Clemenceau left to get a stretcher, she ran down the hill, looking for the
Vigilance Committee of the eighteenth arrondissement, h e r rifle u n d e r

her coat, yelling, "Treason!" 7 Now, the alarm began to ring t h r o u g h o u t
Paris, passed f r o m bugler to bugler, warning the people and the National
Guard that the enemy was present. 8 D r u m s beat the general alarm. Na-
tional guardsmen pulled o n their clothes, grabbed their rifles, and m a d e
their way toward their staging areas. Ordinary people flowed out into the
streets to see what was h a p p e n i n g .
By the time Clemenceau r e t u r n e d to the r u e des Rosiers with two stretch-
er bearers, the crowd h a d grown in size. Sensing the danger that the grow-
ing n u m b e r of people in the streets p o r t e n d e d , General Lecomte refused
to allow Clemenceau to transport Turpin, lest "the sight of him . . . rouse
the m o b " and Clemenceau was forced to r e t u r n to the maine empty hand-
ed 1 0 It was n o t yet eight o'clock, and he r e p o r t e d later that h e saw n o cause
for alarm. In his view, the growing crowds were still calm and friendly. Some
soldiers were "chatting familiarly with the people of the n e i g h b o u r h o o d ,
who were giving them food. Others were being "reproached m lively fash-
ion . . . for having taken part in this expedition," and Clemenceau was sur-
prised "at the piteous expression" on the face of one of them. 1 1
While Clemenceau was returning to the mairie, perhaps more worried
than he later admitted, Louise Michel and other women were climbing
back u p the butte to d o battle with the soldiers. Now a m o r e dangerous
drama began. All over the city as well as t h r o u g h o u t Montmartre, crowds
of women, children, guardsmen, and male civilians c o n f r o n t e d the troops
who h a d captured the cannons and were guarding the streets. In Mont-
martre the horses had finally arrived and the troops were moving the can-
nons and artillery from the top of the hill. But it was too late for this ma-
neuver to succeed. By now, the anonymous author of La vente sur la
Commune reported, "women and children, a compact mass, m o u n t e d the
hills like the foam on an ocean wave; the artillery tried m vain to stop its
passage- the h u m a n wave overran everything, flowing over the gun car-
riages over the caissons, u n d e r the wheels, u n d e r the feet of the horses,
paralyzing the attempts of the horse guards who beat their teams in vain.
Following the women u p the hill, came the national guardsmen who had
finally m a d e their way through the crowd-filled streets. According to the
most detailed account of the day, the women, e m b o l d e n e d perhaps by the
arrival of the a r m e d guards, screamed furiously, "Unharness the horses!
Let's go' We want the cannons! We will have the cannons!" T h e n , over the
noise of the crowd a voice called out, "Cut the traces!" and as the crowd
cheered with joy, the women who were closest to the guns "passed a knife
that the m e n gave t h e m from hand to h a n d " and cut the cords attaching
the horses to the guns. Finally, at the direction of the same national guards-
man who had suggested cutting the traces, the crowd parted, slapped the
horses on their flanks, and the artillerymen seated on their backs were car-
ried away f r o m the cannons into the crowd. 1 3
T h e victory that a couple of hours earlier h a d seemed assured to the gov-
ernment's troops had b e c o m e the crowd's. T h e soldiers, who had left their
barracks in the middle of the night without their packs and without break-
fast, were h u n g r y and cold, as were the people of Montmartre. A fine rain
fell incessantly; only three days earlier, it had snowed. 1 4 Soon the Mont-
martrois were offering the soldiers wine and bread. 1 5 As they accepted, it
became clear that these m e n at least would neither fire u p o n n o r repel the
crowd.
A Times (of London) reporter who had b e e n awakened at five o'clock by
the army's beating of the call to arms, arrived at the boulevard O r n a n o , to
the east of the butte, in time to see the horses arrive and to witness anoth-
er confrontation turn to fraternization and capitulation as a line regiment
encountered a b a n d of national guardsmen. T h e guardsmen h a d already
picked u p some of the defecting soldiers f r o m other places. T h e corre-
spondent reported:
As soon as they got within 20 o r 30 yards of t h e Line regiment, t h e soldiers

leading t h e National G u a r d , a n d who acted as a sort of screen of p r o t e c t i o n ,
s h o u t e d "Vive la RSpublique!" This s e e m e d to be t h e signal f o r t h e whole of
the regular troops to throw t h e butts of their rifles in t h e air, a m o v e m e n t
which was r e s p o n d e d to by t h e whole of t h e National G u a r d s by enthusiastic
shouts of "Vive la LigneVwA t h e i n s t a n t a n e o u s reversal of all their butts. For
a m o m e n t t h e r e was n o t h i n g to b e seen b u t t h e butt-ends of rifles, or to be
h e a r d b u t shouts of "Vive la IJgne!" "Vive la Republique!" T h e soldiers in t h e
balconies a n d windows, where, I suppose, they h a d b e e n placed to shoot the
Guards, c a m e down a n d e m b r a c e d t h e m instead; w o m e n shed tears of joy,
a n d talked a b o u t their sons a n d b r o t h e r s w h o were sous le drapeau [in t h e
army]; a r m s were intertwined, h a n d s w r u n g , cheeks kissed. 1 6
Similar scenes were played out a r o u n d Paris and elsewhere in Mont-

martre, sometimes with greater tension, sometimes with less. 17 Occasion-
ally the army resisted the crowd and continued to move the guns. In o n e
Montmartre incident, a crowd attacked the troops who h a d already b e g u n
to move some of the guns down the hill. People threw bottles and stones
at the soldiers, and women attempted to cut the harnesses of the teams as
they had on the u p p e r plateau. In this case, however, the troops managed
ioUnruly Women of Paris
to keep their horses moving and dragged a few cannons to the Ecole Mil-
itaire. 1 8 For the most part, however, the crowd succeeded in preventing the
army f r o m taking the cannons.
While crowds of women and m e n were overwhelming Paturel's troops
and cutting the horses' traces on the western plateau, a n o t h e r g r o u p was
intermingling with and confronting Lecomte's troops o n the eastern
plateau. Lecomte o r d e r e d the people to move back, and his m e n to load
their rifles. Whether he actually o r d e r e d his m e n to fire is unclear, but
many believed that he had, and their belief would have serious conse-
quences before the day was over. 19 Faced with the possibility of firing on
the citizens and national guardsmen of Paris, the soldiers balked; they
t u r n e d u p their rifle butts, and as Louise Michel would report, "The Rev-
olution was made." 2 0
Confusion about Lecomte's orders in hardly surprising u n d e r the cir-
cumstances. While the officers had worried that their troops would refuse
to fire o n the people if c o m m a n d e d to do so, the Parisians feared exactly
the opposite. Tension was extremely high. Noise and confusion ran
through the streets like water. Clemenceau, back inside the mairie, watched
the National Guard assemble in the square in front of the building.
"Armed National Guards were r u n n i n g about in all directions and in the
greatest confusion. . . . they called out, they were shouting; it was all a per-
fect bedlam." 2 1 Like the Times reporter o n the boulevard O r n a n o , many,
probably most, f o u n d the morning's confrontations—"the uncertainty for
a m o m e n t over whether the m e n were meeting as friends or as enemies,
the wild enthusiasm of the shouts of fraternization, the waving of the up-
t u r n e d muskets, the bold reckless women laughing and exciting the m e n
against their officers"—to be "intensely exciting." 2 2
While some citizens r e m i n d e d the soldiers that they were their brothers
and b r o u g h t t h e m food when they agreed to lay down their arms, others,
often apparently women, screamed death threats and threw rocks, paving
stones, and vegetables at t h e m . 2 3 In some accounts, the people stood their
g r o u n d when soldiers raised their rifles to fire; in others, they screamed
and ran, fearing they would be killed. 2 4 No d o u b t both reactions occurred.
Those who held their g r o u n d did so with fear and trepidation. Louise
Michel r e m e m b e r e d later that the people who climbed the hill with her
"in the first light of day" to c o n f r o n t Lecomte's troops "believed they would
die." 2 5
Whether c o m m a n d e d to fire or not, the soldiers ultimately u p e n d e d
their rifles and the people claimed victory. Lecomte's troops were overrun,
and the National Guard took him and several of his officers prisoner be-
fore they could be lynched. Now cast in the unusual role of rescuing and
protecting the general and his officers, the National Guard m a r c h e d their
prisoners off to the Chateau-Rouge, a popular dance hall near the base of
the hill, which was serving as a National Guard post. 2 6
Although little actual violence had occurred, the threat had been very
real. W h e n the soldiers did not fire, fear t u r n e d to relief and celebration.
According to E d m o n d Lepelletier, the crowd that accompanied Lecomte
and his National Guard protectors to the Chateau-Rouge quickly became
a joyous, disorderly mob. "Men, women, children, soldiers, and national
guards s u r r o u n d e d the general and descended the rue Muller, in noisy
confusion. People cried, jeered, sang the Marseillaise, cheered the Line,
and booed Vinoy. All was a disorderly jostling, pierced by the strident
sounds of a bugle." 2 7
While the victory celebration got u n d e r way, the morning's last battle at
Montmartre was taking place at the place Pigalle. Here, when the crowd
advanced o n the square and the army, the c o m m a n d to fire was obeyed.
The women and children fled while the National Guard r e t u r n e d fire. Men
were w o u n d e d on both sides, and an army officer (Saint-James), three gun-
ners, and five horses were killed, o n e of which was cut u p and distributed
to the crowd. 2 8 It was still only nine thirty in the morning.
By now all Paris was in a state of agitation. T h r o u g h o u t the working-class
arrondissements, citizens and guardsmen were confronting soldiers and
throwing their arms a r o u n d them. Barricades were going up, army troops
were fraternizing with the people or trying to make their way back to the
Ecole Militaire, 2 9 and the government was trying and failing to rouse the
bourgeois units of the National Guard to march against the rebels. T h e na-
tional guardsmen who had captured General Lecomte were trying to de-
cide what to do with him and their other prisoners; the National Guard
Central Committee, which was later accused of directing the uprising, was
in fact trying to figure out what was happening. Thiers, who had initiated
the army's action, panicked and fled for Versailles when a National Guard
battalion marched noisily down the quai d'Orsay where the government
was meeting. 3 0
While the government was assessing its losses, Simon Mayer, the National
Guard captain in charge of the post at the Chateau-Rouge, sought advice
from Clemenceau and money to feed Lecomte and his other prisoners.
Clemenceau complied, apparently still n o t sensing any great danger to the
men. But outside the Chateau-Rouge a n o t h e r crowd was forming. This
group was far m o r e dangerous than the m o r n i n g crowds had been, per-
haps because the composition of the crowd had changed, perhaps because
the morning's events had given people a taste for action which the after-
n o o n lull was not satisfying, perhaps because these people had spent m u c h
of the m o r n i n g and a f t e r n o o n drinking. 3 1
Lecomte and the other officers who had been taken prisoner were jus-
tifiably nervous and, wishing to deal with someone in authority, asked re-
peatedly to be taken to the National Guard Central Committee. Believing
the committee to be at the house o n the r u e des Rosiers and anxious to be
free of the responsibility of guarding them, the National Guard officers at
the Chäteau-Rouge decided to move the prisoners back u p the butte in the
m i d a f t e r n o o n . 3 2 T h e trip was a nightmare for prisoners and guards alike.
Captain Beugnot, o n e of the prisoners, recalled it as "our real agony, our
stations of the cross," and credited the guardsmen with saving the prison-
ers' lives from the angry crowd. 3 3
T h e Central Committee was n o t meeting on the rue des Rosiers and the
guardsmen now f o u n d themselves and their prisoners in an even more
dangerous environment than before. T h e crowd, by this time thoroughly
inflamed, struggled to get into the house. Even so, virtually all witnesses
and historians have agreed that bloodshed might have been avoided had
it not been for the arrival of a n o t h e r prisoner, General Clement Thomas.
Clement T h o m a s was well hated in Paris for his role in the deadly repres-
sion of the workers' revolt in J u n e 1848 and for criticism of the National
Guard during the Prussian siege. 3 4 Guardsmen had recognized him when
he apparently ventured out of doors to see what was going on, and they had
hastened him off to the r u e des Rosiers. His arrival reignited the f u r o r that
some believed had b e g u n to calm down. Clement T h o m a s was p u s h e d into
the garden behind the house and shot to death. Next Lecomte was led into
the garden, where he faltered and asked the m e n to r e m e m b e r that h e had
a wife and five children. Mercy was not forthcoming, and he too was exe-
cuted. 3 5
At this point, Clemenceau r e a p p e a r e d on the scene. Simon Mayer, the
National Guard captain who had been in charge of the prisoners at the
Chäteau-Rouge, had rushed to find him after escorting the prisoners to
the rue des Rosiers, knowing that they were in imminent danger. Grabbing
the sash that identified him as a government official, Clemenceau had fol-
lowed Mayer back u p the butte. As they a p p r o a c h e d the house at 6, r u e des
Rosiers, the word that the generals had b e e n shot reached them.
Clemenceau was stunned, as were the m e n accompanying him. T h e n , he
reported, "a terrific noise broke out, and the m o b which filled the court-
yard of No. 6 burst into the street in the grip of some kind of frenzy." 3 6
Fearing for his own life, Clemenceau beat a hasty retreat, hoping, h e said
later, to save n o t only himself but also the other prisoners who had b e e n
marched away f r o m the rue des Rosiers as h e was arriving. 3 7 T h e crowd

faded away f r o m the scene of the executions, the soldiers who had frater-
nized with the people began to make their way across Paris, the national
government continued to leave the city, and the "leaders" of the people
met to decide what to d o about the events of the day. It was five o'clock in
the a f t e r n o o n . T h e revolution known as the Paris C o m m u n e had begun.
T h e Army, t h e G o v e r n m e n t , a n d t h e Crowd
The deaths of Generals Lecomte and Clement Thomas certainly made

it more difficult for the leaders of the national government and of the city
to negotiate a settlement in the following weeks, b u t they were not the rea-
son the government leaders left Paris. Thiers left for Versailles well before
the generals were executed. Indeed, he did n o t learn of their deaths until
many hours later. After his departure, the civilian ministers r e m a i n e d in
the city and tried to persuade the army to stay as well, but the generals
feared losing control of the army, and they issued orders to evacuate the city
around two o'clock in the m o r n i n g of March 19, approximately twenty-
four hours after the fiasco had b e g u n . 3 8
What is most remarkable about March 18 is not that two generals were
killed but that there was not more bloodshed. No d o u b t there would have
been m u c h more had n o t the Parisians generally f o u n d it easy to persuade
the soldiers to a b a n d o n their orders and j o i n them. After fighting and los-
ing a war to a foreign enemy, French soldiers were n o t inclined to turn
their guns against their fellow countrymen, especially those who had held
out the longest against the Prussians. If anything, their own officers ap-
peared villainous for having failed to devise victory against the Prussians.
In addition, of course, the government's plan was poorly t h o u g h t out at
best, if n o t a maneuver designed to provoke an insurrection and to give
Thiers an excuse to crush the city. 39
However o n e evaluates Thiers's motives, it is clear that the operation was
hastily and poorly planned. T h e soldiers were sent out without their packs,
increasing the likelihood that they would j o i n forces with the Parisians if
they offered t h e m food. Without horses, moreover, it was impossible for
the soldiers to accomplish their mission quickly or at all, and in fact, there
may not have been e n o u g h horses in the city for the army to pull so many
cannons and machine guns. 4 0 In addition, the troops in the city were
young and inexperienced and had billeted with and been befriended by
the workers of Paris, f u r t h e r increasing the likelihood that they would
I
break ranks, as their officers knew at the outset. 4 1 Inadequately organized,

the government's maneuver was d o o m e d f r o m the beginning.
T h e capitulation of the troops is, of course, only half of the story of
March 18 T h e other half belongs to the crowd. T h a t crowds would gath-
er was m o r e than predictable. Parisians have a long history of pouring out
into the streets to see what is happening. As recently as September 4, 1870,
crowds had precipitated the creation of a Government of National De-
fense and at the end of February 1871, when the impending Prussian oc-
cupation of the city was a n n o u n c e d , people h a d r o a m e d the streets day and
night 4 2 T h a t the crowds would take direct action was perhaps less certain.
H a d people merely watched f r o m a distance, the army would have suc-
ceeded in removing the cannons and machine guns.
We have characterizations of the crowd and its actions from a variety oi
eyewitnesses and a plethora of historians. T h e most important firsthand ac-
counts are those of Louise Michel, Gaston Da Costa, the anonymous au-
thor (the Ancien Proscrit, or F o r m e r Exile) who wrote La vente sur la Com-
mune (The truth about the Commune), and E d m o n d Lepelletier, all of
whom were active supporters of the C o m m u n e ; 4 3 Arthur Chevalier, a mem-
ber of the National Guard, and Captain Beugnot, who was taken prisoner
by the National Guard during the day; 44 Georges Clemenceau, the mayor
of the eighteenth arrondissement; and three E n g l i s h journalists—the cor-
respondents for the Times and the Daily News and Ernest Vizetelly, who lat-
er wrote a history of the C o m m u n e in which h e described his own mean-
d e r i n g and observations. N o n e of these observers and participants
witnessed all the day's events. Some wrote immediately; others, many years
later Probably n o t present that day in Montmartre, b u t writing very early
accounts that are often used as primary sources were the impassioned op-
ponents of the C o m m u n e Jules Claretie and Catulle Mendes, and the Com-
m u n e defenders Prosper-Olivier Lissagaray, Paul Lanjalley, and Paul Cor-
riez
W h e n the crowds first e n c o u n t e r e d the troops, they reportedly were pas-
sive if n o t happy, according to Clemenceau. 4 5 T h e first g r o u p the Times
reporter m e t consisted of "gloomy" women and national guardsmen out
of uniform, who were muttering and d e n o u n c i n g everyone, b u t n o o n e
was taking any action. 4 6 Da Costa, perhaps echoing the other accounts,
since he does n o t seem to have been an eyewitness to the early m o r n i n g
encounters, r e p o r t e d that the crowd at first was curious and waggish.
At some point, however, virtually all the groups that gathered m the city
t u r n e d to action, forcing the troops to abandon their efforts and gaming
control of the day. In Montmartre the crowd's actions were decisive at three
different points: the m o r n i n g struggle for control of the cannons and the
streets, the demonstrations outside the Chateau-Rouge which led to the

transfer of the prisoners to the rue des Rosiers, and the assassinations of
the generals. Eyewitnesses and historians have assigned leading roles to
women in all these events, although they have disagreed about how to de-
scribe, categorize, and j u d g e these roles. These disagreements reveal
deeply held (and changing) convictions about the nature of woman and
women's p r o p e r roles and provide the first of many demonstrations of the
use of representations of women to make j u d g m e n t s about the C o m m u n e .
R e p o r t s of W o m e n ' s Voices
T h e women in the m o r n i n g and a f t e r n o o n crowds are commonly de-
scribed as being m o r e vocal than the men. It is they who are credited with
chastising the soldiers in the m o r n i n g and with screaming for the gener-
als' deaths in the a f t e r n o o n . It is possible that the women were more ver-
bal in their encounters with the male soldiers and officers than the na-
tional guardsmen were, either because they were socialized to be more
verbal or because they had n o guns and their only weapons were words. It
is also possible that the women were not m o r e vocal than the m e n and that
the reports reflect male expectations rather than the actual situation.
Whatever might be "factually" correct, it is clear that the women's words
seemed more memorable and m o r e decisive than the m e n ' s to the male
observers of the day's events.
The words placed in women's m o u t h s by observers and historians fall
roughly into four categories: reproaches, demands, inarticulate sounds,
and insults. In many accounts of the morning, the women reproached the
troops by reminding t h e m of their c o m m o n heritage and their "real" ene-
my—Prussia—and by playing u p o n accepted gender conventions and ask-
ing them if they truly intended to kill women and children. Da Costa, for
instance, tells us that the women asked the soldiers, "Are you going to fire
on us? O n your brothers? O n o u r husbands? O n our children?" 4 8 A woman
overheard by the Times correspondent asked the soldiers if they were not
"ashamed of coming to fire u p o n us?" 49 Lissagaray in the same vein re-
ported that the women appealed to the soldiers' sense of honor, saying,
"This is shameful! What are you doing there?" 5 0
Other observers h e a r d women's words as demands. General d'Aurelles
de Paladine, for instance, testified before the parliamentary inquest that
the women and children told the troops, "You will not fire u p o n the peo-
ple." 31 Lepelletier, more vividly, q u o t e d the women as saying, "Don't fire!
You are our friends! We are all brothers [sic\ !" 52 T h e author of La veritesur
I
la Commune claimed that it was the women, above all, who cried, "Unhar-
ness the guns! Go on! We want the cannons! T h e cannons are ours!"- In
the afternoon, women, n o t men, were "credited" with d e m a n d i n g the
deaths of the prisoners and generals. Beugnot, for instance, reported that
the women "screamed that they were going to kill us." 54
Women also insulted the officers in the m o r n i n g , sometimes in con-
j u n c t i o n with shaming them. O n e woman, said the Times correspondent,
called the troops "sacre gredins ( d a m n e d scoundrels) and complained
loudly that "they can fight against French fathers of families, but n o t
against Prussians." 5 5 In the eyes of E. B. Washburne, the American minis-
ter to France, the women's greatest insult to General Vinoy took n o t a ver-
bal b u t a physical form. "He was s u r r o u n d e d by a m o b of women," Wash-
b u r n e reported, "who pelted him with stones, and, as the deepest mark of
insult, threw at him a cap." 5 6 Captain Beugnot also claimed that the women
who s u r r o u n d e d the prisoners as they were moved f r o m the Chateau-
Rouge to the rue des Rosiers "hurled insults" at the m e n . 5 7 Occasionally
women's insults were directed toward the National Guard rather than the
soldiers. O n e woman, complaining about the failure of the guardsmen to
protect the guns at the outset, observed, "If they had only left t h e m to us
[i e to women] to guard, they would n o t have b e e n captured so easily."
Sometimes observers placed inarticulate b u t nevertheless expressive
sounds in women's mouths. Catulle Mendes claimed that women f o r m e d
a circle a r o u n d Vinoy's horse in the place Pigalle, and "hooted" at him.-
In Clemenceau's memory, the women whom h e e n c o u n t e r e d on the r u e
des Rosiers "utter[ed] raucous cries," while the men, even less articulate,
"danced about and jostled o n e another in a kind of savage fury," and both
"shrieked like wild beasts." 60 Washburne r e p o r t e d that the women,
"howled like a pack of wolves." 61 Alistair H o m e , o n e of the most colorful
and critical of the C o m m u n e historians, e c h o e d him, declaring that
women "howled for the blood of the captive" on the march back u p the
hill. 62 ,
Lepelletier placed the women in a m o r e literary context than most ob-
servers, according t h e m the role of the chorus in Greek tragedies. They
gave voice to the action, encouraged the protagonists, and provoked the
tragedy that was to occur; in short, they controlled and n a r r a t e d the events
of the day. 63
Men, of course, were n o t silent on March 18, b u t eyewitnesses and his-
torians p u t many fewer words in their mouths. O n o n e of his trips u p the
butte, Clemenceau reported that h e saw "a National Guardsman re-
proaching in lively fashion a soldier for having taken part in this expedi-
tion." 6 4 T h e Times correspondent also recounted a soldier's forceful de-
fense of himself to the crowd that was accusing him of planning to fire on
the people. "Do you think I will fire on a Frenchman?" h e asked. "Am I n o t
a Frenchman? Have I not twice been taken prisoner by the Prussians, once
at Sedan and once at Dijon? Why, then, should I fire u p o n my country-
men?" 6 5 T h e words most frequently attributed to the National Guard, how-
ever, are shouts of Vive la Ligne! and Vive la Republique!—phrases intended
to encourage the soldiers to defect. T h e soldiers, for their part, j o i n in the
chants once they have a b a n d o n e d their orders and add Vive le Garde Na-
tionale! as a show of unity. 66
Some of the words attributed to women and m e n on March 18 fit cul-
tural conceptualizations of appropriate female and male behavior. W h e n
women r e m i n d e d m e n of their responsibilities and when m e n criticized
other m e n or declared their solidarity with o n e another, they were acting
in gender-appropriate ways. But some of the words that were said, or that
observers imagined were said, were n o t culturally appropriate, and these
p o r t e n d e d the decline of civilization to conservative critics of the Com-
m u n e . Women who insulted soldiers, howled like wolves, and declared that
they could have d e f e n d e d the guns better than the m e n were acting against
their gender, as were m e n who plaintively declared that they would n o t fire
on the people. These signs of the instability of gender formulations would
trouble observers, especially critics, of the C o m m u n e t h r o u g h o u t its brief
reign.
W o m e n ' s Actions
Accounts and analyses of the day's events in Montmartre generally di-
vide them into two parts, the relatively nonviolent events of the m o r n i n g
and the violent events of the a f t e r n o o n . This division is m a d e on the basis
of what is perceived as a change in the behavior of the women in the crowd.
Gaston Da Costa, an official of the C o m m u n e , m a d e this distinction in his
1903 memoir. T h e a f t e r n o o n violence, h e explained, had occurred be-
cause the "housewives" of Montmartre had "returned to their homes" and
been replaced by the prostitutes of the place Pigalle. According to his read-
ing of the crowd, the m o r n i n g women were "curious, gaping, joking and
jeering," "anguished," and "superb and truly h u m a n e . " T h e afternoon
women were "a horrible phalanx of registered and unregistered prostitutes
from the quartier des Martyrs and . . . the hotels, cafes and brothels." The
family-loving and self-sacrificing m o r n i n g women were those who had
"stood in the snow for hours, without bread and without heat in their lodg-
ings, f o r m i n g queues for rations at the doors of the butchers and bakers,"
i o
during the Prussian siege. T h e a f t e r n o o n women were self-indulgent; they

"got d r u n k at all the bars, and howled their scoundrel joy at this defeat of
the authorities." T h e m o r n i n g women were "the true women of the peo-
ple;" the a f t e r n o o n women, "true furies . . . the sad froth of prostitution o n
the revolutionary wave." 67
Da Costa drew these distinctions to rescue both the women of the morn-
ing crowds and the reputation of the C o m m u n e f r o m general vilification
by conservatives like Jules Claretie. As Da Costa observed, "One of the pro-
ceedings of the crazed reaction [to the C o m m u n e ] was to present the
women of Montmartre u n d e r the most hideous aspects. Before presenting
them as the petroleuses, they identified them, from the 18th of March, with
horrible shrews." 68 No comparable division is m a d e for male participants.
With the exception of some references to pimps in the a f t e r n o o n crowds,
the men are universally described as national guardsmen, soldiers who had
switched sides, and "blouses" (workers). T h e consistency with which the
m e n in the crowd are portrayed contrasts sharply with the dichotomized
picture of the women and reveals the effect of gender conceptualizations
on the "reporting," analyzing, and j u d g i n g of the day's events.
Men were expected to act in the public arena. Conservatives might ques-
tion the morality and legality of their actions during the day, and even
C o m m u n e supporters might c o n d e m n those who participated in the exe-
cutions of the generals, but n o o n e would question the normalcy of their
actions. Their presence on the streets c o n f o r m e d to gender expectations
in ways that women's did not. T h e j u d g m e n t s of women that appear in con-
temporary and historical texts reflect more than gender conventions, how-
ever. They are part of a complex intellectual process of alteration, substi-
tution, and j u d g m e n t which identifies the C o m m u n e with its female
supporters and j u d g e s both. T h e more critical the observer or historian,
the more bloodthirsty the representations of women.
Discovering t h e T r o o p s
Only a few of the early accounts of the m o r n i n g events include the dis-
covery of the troops. Lissagaray, Clemenceau, and Lanjalley and Corriez
"describe" this scene. Da Costa, Michel, the author of La verite sur la Com-
mune, Claretie, the Times reporter, and Lepelletier, all of whom describe
other events of the morning, d o not. Lissagaray, a pro-Commune journal-
ist who escaped capture and completed his history of the C o m m u n e in ex-
ile in Brussels in 1876, reported that while the troops waited for the horses
to arrive,
t h e f a u b o u r g s are awaking a n d t h e m o r n i n g shops o p e n i n g . A r o u n d the

milkmaids a n d b e f o r e t h e wine m e r c h a n t s t h e p e o p l e talk in low voices; they
point at t h e soldiers, t h e m a c h i n e g u n s leveled at t h e streets, t h e walls cov-
e r e d with t h e still-wet placard signed by M. Thiers a n d his ministers. . . .
T h e w o m e n set o u t first, as in t h e days of t h e Revolution. T h o s e of
March 18, h a r d e n e d by t h e siege—they h a d h a d a d o u b l e ration of misery—
d o n o t wait f o r t h e m e n . They s u r r o u n d t h e m a c h i n e g u n s a n d question t h e
m e n in charge, saying, "This is shameful; what are you d o i n g there?" T h e sol-
diers are silent. . . . Suddenly, t h e call to a r m s sounds. T h e national guards-
m e n have discovered two d r u m s . 6 9
Lanjalley a n d Corriez, in contrast, r e c o u n t e d t h a t
the firing of g u n s [at t h e r u e des Rosiers] h a d , in effect, s o u n d e d t h e alarm

in t h e quarter. T h e w a r n i n g was given; t h e national g u a r d s m e n d e s c e n d e d
into t h e streets w h e r e g r o u p s of housewives [menageres] were g a t h e r e d , hav-
ing left their h o m e s to d o their m o r n i n g s h o p p i n g . T h e y l e a r n e d of t h e re-
taking of t h e c a n n o n s , a n d they spread t h e news in all directions. 7 0
Clemenceau, who arrived on the scene before any fighting h a d taken place
b e t w e e n t h e p e o p l e a n d t h e t r o o p s , r e p o r t e d t h a t o n his first trip to t h e
t o p of t h e b u t t e ,
T h e news of t h e c o u p was j u s t b e g i n n i n g to spread. O n t h e d o o r s t e p s a n d in

f r o n t of all the still closed shops m e n in shirt sleeves were chatting a n d pre-
serving a completely calm attitude. Of National G u a r d , u n i f o r m s or arms,
n o t a sign. T h e n e a r e r I c a m e to t h e top of t h e Buttes, t h e m o r e relaxed
s e e m e d to be t h e attitude of the soldiers. U p there, t h e r e were a great m a n y
civilians. They c h a t t e d with t h e soldiers, several of w h o m h a d laid their rifles
down o n t h e p a v e m e n t to go into t h e bakers' shops. 7 1
T h e similarities a n d d i f f e r e n c e s a m o n g these texts are interesting. Lan-

jalley a n d C o r r i e z a n d Lissagaray explicitly m e n t i o n w o m e n ; C l e m e n c e a u
does not. Clemenceau s e e s s o l d i e r s a n d civilians (perhaps m e n and
w o m e n , p e r h a p s j u s t m e n ) ; Lissagaray, p e o p l e w h o m h e l a t e r i d e n t i f i e s as
national g u a r d s m e n a n d w o m e n ; Lanjalley a n d Corriez, national guards-
m e n a n d housewives. C l e m e n c e a u sees soldiers e n t e r i n g bakeries (again
w o m e n are n o t m e n t i o n e d ) ; Lissagaray's p e o p l e cluster a r o u n d m i l k m a i d s
a n d wineshops; Lanjalley a n d Corriez's w o m e n have arisen to p u r c h a s e un-
s p e c i f i e d g o o d s . I n all a c c o u n t s , t h e n e w s o f t h e t r o o p s s p r e a d s q u i c k l y . I n
n o n e of these a c c o u n t s are any c h i l d r e n m e n t i o n e d .
These three texts f o r m the basis for later accounts of the beginnings of
the C o m m u n e . Some later histories eliminate all details and with them,
women. Stephane Rials and Georges Bourgin say simply, "the day broke,"
and move directly to the confrontations over the cannons. 2 Some men-
tion women but, like Clemenceau, assign t h e m n o i n d e p e n d e n t roles.
William Serman, for instance, tells us, "Paris wakes up," and "men, women
and children arise, question each other, and emerge en masse to learn
what is happening." 7 3 Some combine information f r o m the three prima-
ry sources, including some details, eliminating others, b u t not changing
the basic sense of the early sources. Some embellish the texts with addi-
tional details, sometimes to incorporate their own knowledge about the sit-
uation in Paris (such as the resumption of regular milk delivery), some-
times simply to heighten the drama. Some add children. Some increase
the size of the crowd. But some exceed simple embellishment of these fair-
ly compatible texts, altering t h e m to establish differences between m e n ' s
and women's behavior that d o not appear in the original versions.
Lepelletier, writing in 1911, combined texts and then embroidered on
them:
M o n t m a r t r e . . . h a d awakened, a n d already it was extraordinarily a n i m a t e d .

Blinds a n d shutters were o p e n e d ; bewildered p e o p l e were at t h e windows a n d
o n t h e thresholds of t h e shops. A r o u n d t h e milkmaids, t h e housewives curi-
ously q u e s t i o n e d a n d chattered; g r o u p s f o r m e d a r o u n d t h e wine m e r c h a n t s '
counters. G u n f i r e h a d b e e n vaguely h e a r d . . . . Soon t h e alarm b e g a n to
sound, and t h e d r u m s beat the g e n e r a l a l a r m in t h e chaussee Clignancourt.
Rapidly, it was like a c h a n g e of scene in a theater: all t h e streets leading to
t h e b u t t e were filled with a t r e m b l i n g crowd. . . . It was un grand bal populaire,
in vogue d u r i n g the e m p i r e . 7 3
H e n r i Lefebvre, writing a half century later, a d d e d children and another

set of embellishments, this time about the women.
But at M o n t m a r t r e ? First t h e w o m e n c a m e o u t into t h e streets; they were ac-

c u s t o m e d to rising early to go in search of milk, whose regular distribution
h a d b e e n restored. They p r e c e d e d t h e m e n . H a i r disheveled, dressed in their
m o r n i n g gowns [neglige malinaH, a n d at first s t u n n e d , they c a m e out. Chil-
d r e n followed. A n d all at once, it was a h u m a n sea, a m o n g which t h e w o m e n
dominated.7'1
In his centenary history, Stewart Edwards followed the primary texts

carefully but, like Lefebvre, added children to the scene.
Slowly t h e village awakened. W o m e n c a m e o u t to fetch milk a n d saw t h e

troops everywhere. Astonished, they were j o i n e d by their children a n d m e n -
folk. Shops a n d cafes o p e n e d their shutters. T h e troops were now f a m i s h e d
a n d cold, having b e e n u p some five hours. N o t having their packs with t h e m ,
many laid down their rifles a n d went off to buy some f o o d f r o m nearby. It was
t h e w o m e n most noticeably w h o b e g a n to r e m o n s t r a t e with t h e soldiers, ask-
ing w h e r e they t h o u g h t they were going to take t h e c a n n o n s : "To Berlin?" At
the same time t h e local w o m e n o f f e r e d t h e troops wine and b r e a d . . . . In t h e
streets below t h e d r u m s were now beating o u t t h e rappel [call to arms] , 7 7
Women without children were an apparent impossibility.

These texts, though they remain relatively faithful to the original
sources, adding details to enliven and vivify the scene, create an identifi-
cation of women with the purchase of milk which does n o t exist in the pri-
mary texts. Wine is either eliminated f r o m the story (Edwards mentions it
only when the women offer f o o d to the soldiers) or is sought by a non-
gendered group. Milk, however, is sought only by women. In these texts a
subtle distinction between male and female behavior in the lull before the
battle, h e n c e between male and female nature, begins to take shape, a dis-
tinction that is more complete and less subtle in Georges Bourgin's 1928
text.
But p e o p l e were already u p in t h e heavily p o p u l a t e d streets where t h e s o u n d

of t h e m a r c h i n g companies, despite t h e issuing of c o m m a n d s in low voices,
h a d risen to t h e u n s h u t t e r e d windows. T h e w o m e n were clustered in t h e
dairy shops, t h e m e n in those of t h e wine m e r c h a n t s or b e f o r e t h e govern-
m e n t ' s posters. 7 8
Bourgin's version of the early m o r n i n g events varies in three seemingly

small b u t ideologically significant ways f r o m the early accounts. First, he
completely separates the women from the m e n by associating women with
the purchase of milk and m e n with wine. Second, h e places women inside
dairy shops rather than on the street a r o u n d milkmaids. Third, only m e n
read the government's posters. Each change plays a role in establishing
separate male and female public places, roles, and character. Women go to
the dairy shops to buy food for their families; m e n go to the wine shops to
buy wine for themselves. Men read political posters and act politically;
women d o n o t read the posters and h e n c e c a n n o t act politically. T h e world
of politics is a male world. T h e world of the family is a female world.
Women go out into public only to secure provisions for their families, not
to act on their own behalf. Believing in the existence of these separate do-
mains for women and men, Bourgin imposes t h e m o n the residents of

Montmartre even though they d o n o t exist in his sources.
T h e Struggle f o r t h e C a n n o n s
Louise Michel, La verite sur la Commune, the '/ trnes correspondent, the na-
tional guardsman Chevalier, and Lissagaray witnessed and described vari-
ous episodes in the struggle for the cannons and, o n e might add, for the
hearts and minds of the soldiers. T h e differences a m o n g these descriptions
are partially accounted for by the writers having witnessed different scenes.
T h e Times reporter saw confrontations at the base of the butte b u t not
those higher up. Michel and the author of La verite sur la Commune wit-
nessed the confrontations on the u p p e r plateaus. Da Costa and Lepelleti-
er were present later at the place Pigalle, but n o t earlier on the hill. All but
o n e of these accounts place women in the center of the confrontations and
assign them leading roles in the struggle.
Only in the confrontation between Lecomte's troops and the crowd are
the differences in the accounts clearly contradictory rather than comple-
mentary. T h e most detailed of these "eyewitness" accounts is that of La
verite sur la Commune, which gives a dramatic rendition of the scene:
T h e g e n e r a l [Lecomte] knew that t h e disposition of t h e battalion was p o o r ;

that was why h e h a d taken direct c o m m a n d of it.
At that m o m e n t , t h e crowd of w o m e n a n d children, g a t h e r e d at t h e
m o u t h of t h e r u e Muller, saw that t h e g e n e r a l was going to give t h e c o m m a n d
to fire. An involuntary s h u d d e r swept t h e m , b u t instead of fleeing, they threw
themselves in f r o n t of t h e soldiers, crying, "Don't fire!"
T h e general, in a r e s o u n d i n g voice t h a t carried above t h e noise, com-
m a n d e d , "Prepare arms!"
T h e crowd s t o p p e d .
"Aim!"
Rifles were placed o n shoulders; muzzles of c a n n o n s were lowered.
T h e crowd t r e m b l e d , b u t it did n o t b u d g e . In a s h o r t b u t p r o f o u n d silence,
t h e word r e s o u n d e d , "Fire!"
T h e agony was piercing. T h e national g u a r d s m e n p r e p a r e d to avenge
t h e crowd if t h e troops fired.
T h e y r e f u s e d to obey. O n e g u n , t h e n ten, t h e n a h u n d r e d were t u r n e d
up, a n d it s e e m e d that the d e a t h t h a t h a d h o v e r e d over this m u l t i t u d e took
flight a n d spared t h e m . . . .
[ T h e g e n e r a l ] c o m m a n d e d t h e m e n to fire t h r e e d i f f e r e n t times. . . .
N o t h i n g aroused t h e m ; n o t h i n g convinced t h e soldiers; they r e m a i n e d un-
moved.79
Louise Michel's briefer account is similar:
T h e w o m e n threw themselves o n t h e c a n n o n s a n d m a c h i n e guns; t h e sol-

diers r e m a i n e d immobile. W h e n G e n e r a l L e c o m t e c o m m a n d e d t h e m to fire
o n t h e crowd, a n o n c o m m i s s i o n e d officer left t h e ranks, placed himself be-
f o r e his c o m p a n y a n d yelled, l o u d e r t h a n Lecomte: "Turn u p your rifle
butts!" T h e soldiers obeyed. . . . T h e Revolution was m a d e . 8 0
A third account of the same scene is n o t compatible with those of Michel

and La verite sur la Commune. Arthur Chevalier recalled that when the sol-
diers knelt and raised their guns,
t h e w o m e n a n d t h e children screamed. T h e m e n were m a d d e n e d . A p a n i c

took possession of everyone a n d they d e s c e n d e d t h e b u t t e in c o m p l e t e dis-
order. In t h e shelter of the houses, they r e f o r m e d immediately into a col-
u m n , this time without t h e w o m e n a n d the children. T h e y r e c o m m e n c e d t h e
attack. This time, t h e f o o t soldiers were o v e r w h e l m e d a n d carried away. 81
T h e differences in these accounts are impossible to reconcile. O n e won-

ders, indeed, if all of them describe the same event. Michel and La verite
sur la Commune give the women decisive roles. No o n e flees. T h e women
and guardsmen hold their ground, confront the soldiers, and insinuate
themselves a m o n g the cannons and machine guns. Chevalier gives a more
"feminine" (and less significant) role to the women. W h e n threatened,
they, like the children, scream and r u n away. T h e men, failing in the be-
ginning to act like soldiers (that is, like men), overcome their fear, regroup,
and r e t u r n to the fray. In this scenario, written by a national guardsman, it
is the National Guard that plays the decisive role.
Impossible as it is to reconcile these accounts, they share elements with
one a n o t h e r and with the other accounts of the m o r n i n g ' s events. T h e
crowds that c o n f r o n t the soldiers contain women; the confrontations are
tense; people fear for their lives (whether they hold their g r o u n d or flee);
and the crowd and National Guard prevail without violence. These ele-
ments, as well as Michel's account of women throwing themselves on the
cannons, appear in most histories of the m o r n i n g ' s events. In pro-Com-
m u n e histories, the u n a r m e d women who challenge the troops become
heroines. T h e C o m m u n a r d Da Costa described them as "superb and truly

humane"; 8 2 the English journalist Ernest Vizetelly, as "largely instrumen-
tal in prevailing o n the soldiers to fraternize with the National Guard." 8 3
Lepelletier thought the crowd was predominantly women. 8 4 These were
the good "housewives" (menageres) of Montmartre whose potentially sacri-
ficial acts stayed within gender conventions and could be praised by men.
Even Jules Claretie, a foe of the C o m m u n e , credited women with disarm-
ing the soldiers, although his characterization was a bit less flattering. H e
reported that "women ran u p and, climbing u p the butte from the place
Saint-Pierre where the crowd was gathering, a p p r o a c h e d the soldiers, now
insulting them, now pleading with them not to fire on the people." 8 5
In some accounts the use of large inclusive terms obscures the specific
roles of women in the confrontations. In some pro-Commune histories,
women disappear into the peuple (people); in anti-Commune histories, into
the canaille (rabble) and the foule (mob). Still others, following Chevalier,
give credit for the reconquest of the cannons to the National Guard. 8 6
T h e Place Pigalle
T h e m o r n i n g crowds defeated the soldiers with little or n o actual vio-

lence. Not until shots were fired in the place Pigalle was anyone killed or
wounded. Although Da Costa and some historians have classified the place
Pigalle with the more dangerous and violent confrontations of the after-
noon, the crowd here seems to have had the same tenor and goal as oth-
ers during the morning. T h e difference in outcome was d e t e r m i n e d by the
army, not the crowd. General Susbielle o r d e r e d his m e n to clear the place.
T h e cavalry initially tried to d o so by backing their horses across the
square—a standard crowd control measure in Paris. Buoyed by their suc-
cesses o n the butte, however, the crowd, instead of retreating, h o o t e d at
the cavalry. Captain Saint-James, infuriated by the crowds' taunts, o r d e r e d
his m e n to turn their horses and charge the crowd. W h e n his m e n h u n g
back, he drew his sword and rode into the midst of the people, where he
and his horse were killed by shots f r o m the National Guard. T h e subse-
q u e n t battle was brief and the n u m b e r of soldiers killed and w o u n d e d was
small, but like other generals t h r o u g h o u t Paris o n this day, Susbielle re-
treated, and his soldiers fraternized with the people. As Lepelletier, an eye-
witness, described the battle, "The women, as earlier o n the butte, threw
themselves into the midst of the soldiers, linesmen and cavalry. T h e battle
was over. . . . T h e people, the national guardsmen, the troops fraternized.
Wine and food were passed around. A machine gun, a b a n d o n e d by the

fleeing troops, was reclaimed." 8 7
The Horse
T h e main reason Da Costa and historians want to categorize the battle
in the place Pigalle with the a f t e r n o o n ' s rather than the morning's events
is the occurrence of a seemingly minor event in the aftermath of the fight-
ing: the butchering of Saint-James's horse. Quickly identified as the work
of women in the crowd, this act acquired considerable symbolic signifi-
cance a m o n g historians writing as early as 1871. It was an o m e n of things
to come.
Most accounts of the battle in the place Pigalle read as though only o n e
horse was killed in the battle, although the testimony of officers indicates
that at least five horses died. 8 8 T h e tradition of o n e horse began early, per-
haps because only o n e horse was cut up. T h e only published eyewitness ac-
count of what h a p p e n e d to the horse was written by E d m o n d Lepelletier
in 1911, in a footnote to his text: "The a u t h o r saw a band of individuals of
both sexes, starving and ragged, r u n u p f r o m who knows where, throw them-
selves on the dead horse of the captain of the chasseurs [light cavalry],
a b a n d o n e d in a sea of blood on the pavement. In an instant, the animal
was dismembered. These starving people ran away after having divided the
bloody flesh of this unexpected offering." 8 9 Clemenceau's memoirs, writ-
ten even later than Lepelletier's history, also contain a dispassionate ac-
count of the incident, though Clemenceau himself was n o t present at t h e '
battle: ' T h e r e were collisions in the Place Pigalle between National Guards
and Chasseurs. O n e officer was killed An h o u r later the officer's horse,
which had also been killed, had been completely cut u p for food by the
crowd. Not a trace of it was left. A characteristic detail." 9 0 Whether
Clemenceau t h o u g h t this "detail" was characteristic of the day's events or
of something else is unclear. What is clear and important, given other ver-
sions of this "event," is the n o n j u d g m e n t a l character of Clemenceau's and
Lepelletier's accounts. Neither m a n seems horrified at the butchering of
the horse, n o r does either attribute it solely to women. Both seem to in-
clude it (in both cases in a footnote) as a m e r e oddity.
Lepelletier's and Clemenceau's dispassionate, even sympathetic repor-
torial styles stand in considerable contrast to most other accounts of this
small event. Although many historians, like Lissagaray, fail to mention the
dead horse at all, others attribute the dismembering of the animal solely
i o
to women. 9 1 O n e of the first to identify women as the butchers was

Claretie, writing in 1872. H e presented the cutting u p of the horse as a par-
adigm of what the C o m m u n e had d o n e to France. T h e horse butchers and
the C o m m u n a r d s alike had been depraved, uncivilized:
T h e p o o r p e o p l e [ d u r i n g t h e Prussian siege], attacked in their guts, b e c a m e

wild, savage. They f o u g h t for a little meat. T h e ruthless desire to gnaw bloody
flesh drove t h e m . O n e saw, in these days of distress a n d f a m i n e , horses dis-
m e m b e r e d in t h e m i d d l e of t h e street. Bef ore t h e Hotel de Ville, a horse fell
down. T h e crowd raced to it like dogs to a quarry. T h e y cut, divided, sawed,
carried off, ate. H u m a n beings r e t u r n e d to primitive brutality. H u n g e r kin-
dled their sinister passions. T h e m o r n i n g of March 18, an artillery officer
was killed in t h e place Pigalle; t h e same volley felled his horse. W o m e n a n d
children ran f o r w a r d , knives in their hands. Prostitutes in silk skirts a n d fly-
ing hair, streetwalkers f r o m t h e local cafes, threw themselves o n t h e horse,
a n d cut u p its flesh entirely. This dividing of t h e spoils took place in b r o a d
daylight. We s e e m e d to have r e t u r n e d to the d a r k days of f a m i n e of t h e Mid-
dle Ages. 9 2
Claretie's version replaces the h u n g r y and ragged m e n and women of

Lepelletier's account with women and children and then prostitutes—all
of whom act u p o n "sinister passions." 9 3 Changing the cast of characters
changes the meaning of the event. No longer a sign of the hardships of the
recently e n d e d siege, the butchering of the horse is a sign of the end of civ-
ilization, the r e t u r n to a "primitive brutality" associated with the dark ages.
By analogy, Claretie implies, the leaders of the C o m m u n e would be n o bet-
ter than the prostitutes who butchered a horse on the street and Paris
would be brutalized.
It was Claretie's account that p r o m p t e d Da Costa's distinction between
the "good" women of the m o r n i n g and the "bad" women of the a f t e r n o o n .
In the morning, the good women of Montmartre risked their lives to con-
front the soldiers, and they regained control of the guns without blood-
shed. In the afternoon, the bad women of the place Pigalle (whom h e de-
scribed as prostitutes) grew brutal. They harassed the prisoners, called for
their deaths, and rejoiced at the executions on the r u e des Rosiers. They
also dismembered the horse. 9 4
Despite his desire to defend the revolutionaries, the university-educated
Da Costa could n o t bring himself to approve the butchering of the horse
even t h o u g h he attributed it to the ravages of the Prussian siege. Unlike
Lepelletier who described the butchers as "famished and ragged" (and,
one might add, presented t h e m as resourceful), Da Costa saw them as de-

moralized. "Some p o o r women," he said, "demoralized by the deleterious
effects of poverty . . . cut u p the still-warm flesh of the horse of an officer
killed some moments earlier." 95
The addition of the descriptive detail, "still-warm flesh," reveals Da Cos-
ta's horror. Civilized people (especially civilized women, meant to give life,
not death) would not cut u p an animal whose body still retained the
warmth of life. Despite his a b h o r r e n c e of Claretie's politics, Da Costa was
not as far f r o m him in his j u d g m e n t of this particular act, or of women, as
he wanted to be. But h e did differ f r o m Claretie in the significance h e at-
tached to this event. Da Costa c o n d e m n e d the act, b u t h e did not use it to
vilify the female supporters of the C o m m u n e or, indeed, the C o m m u n e in
general.
T h e word that both Claretie and Da Costa seemed to be groping for and
not finding was supplied by Frank Jellinek in his 1937 history of the Com-
mune. Subscribing to the theory that it was women who cut u p the horse
and agreeing with Claretie and Da Costa that this behavior had b e e n
learned during the siege, Jellinek, a pro-Commune historian, declared
that the horse was "cut to pieces by the women, who had conserved this
jackal trick f r o m the Prussian Siege." 96 A few pages later, h e n o t e d that
a m o n g the a f t e r n o o n crowd were "the sinister persons who had mangled
the horse in the Place Pigalle." 97
Two things are interesting about the accounts of the dismembering of
the captain's horse: first, its identification with women, and, second, its ap-
pearance in so many histories of the C o m m u n e . T h e second is a result of
the first. T h e fascination with and ideological usefulness of the butchering
of the horse came only with its attribution to women. H a d the butchers
been m e n or even of both sexes as Lepelletier specified, the event would
not have seemed so horrifying. Men were and have continued to be the
butchers of large animals in western European society. For women to j o i n
in, "in broad daylight," as Claretie pointed out, was to act against their na-
ture. Few actions would have b e e n regarded as more u n f e m i n i n e and
hence more disturbing by both liberal and conservative male writers. Sym-
bolically, if n o t in actual fact, the virtuous, life-giving mothers of the morn-
ing had t u r n e d into evil, m u r d e r o u s jackals.
Indeed, when the death of the horse is disassociated f r o m women, it be-
comes merely a picturesque detail, as Edwards's history demonstrates. By
using the passive voice and placing the dismembering of the horse in the
context of the siege, he attributed the act to n o o n e and eliminated its sym-
bolic significance: "The slain officer's horse was torn to pieces where it lay
in the square, a c o m m o n e n o u g h practice dating f r o m the siege." 98 Once
io
lOO Unruly Women of Paris
it was dissociated f r o m women, the horse began to disappear f r o m histo-

ries a l t o g e t h e r . "
T h e Assassinations
Having connected the horse butchering to women, historians used it to

foreshadow and explain the killing of Generals Lecomte and Clement
Thomas later in the day—deaths for which women would largely be held
accountable, although they were not literally responsible. Two early ac-
counts describe the crowd that s u r r o u n d e d the Chateau-Rouge as consist-
ing "chiefly of soldiers" or of "prostitutes . . . on the arms of the soldiers of
the line, accompanied by a legion of pimps and bullies [souteneurs] ," 1 0 0 But
the account that would attract the most attention focused exclusively o n
women. Captain Beugnot, o n e of the captured officers, described the
crowd as composed of "mad bitches, [who] raised their fists to us, crushed
us with insults, and screamed at us that they were going to kill us." 1 0 1 Sim-
ilarly, Lepelletier likened the women to a "sanguinary antique choir" and
to "the plebeians of the Roman arenas . . . [who] gave new life to the cru-
el desires of the furies of the guillotine, u n d e r the Terror." 1 0 2 T h e twenti-
eth-century historian Alistair H o m e called them "prostitutes and an ap-
palling g r o u p of harpies . . . figures horribly reminiscent of the tricoteuses
of the Terror . . . [who] howled for the blood of the captive." 1 0 3
T h e executions of Generals Lecomte and Clement T h o m a s were con-
d e m n e d by virtually everyone. Versaillais and Parisian newspapers and po-
litical leaders decried them. But while contemporaries and historians
agreed that the deaths should not have occurred, they agreed on little else
about the events on the rue des Rosiers. People alternatively blamed the
crowd, the National Guard, the National Guard Central Committee, and
the army for the deaths. Even the words they used for the deaths—"assas-
sination," "killing," "execution," and " m u r d e r " — d e p e n d e d u p o n their po-
litical position. 1 0 4 Everyone connected to the deaths, however tangential-
ly, was tainted. Clemenceau narrowly escaped p u n i s h m e n t for failing to
save the generals, and in a final injustice, the French national government
tried and executed the guardsmen who had tried to prevent the execu-
tions. 1 0 3
T h e autopsy reports establish what we might think of as the facts of the
case. Many shots were fired at the generals. Forty bullets were removed
from Clement Thomas's body and nine f r o m Lecomte's. Each was shot in
the h e a d as well. Clement Thomas's body was m o r e d a m a g e d than
Lecomte's because it sustained a greater n u m b e r of wounds. Most of the
bullets removed from the bodies (perhaps all) had b e e n fired from the
type of rifles that the army and n o t the National Guard possessed, which
means that disaffected soldiers and not the national guardsmen or the
crowd were responsible for the assassinations of the generals. 1 0 6 But the
C o m m u n e would be blamed.
Contemporaries and historians who admired the C o m m u n a r d s often
left women out of the story of the generals' deaths, 1 0 7 feeling, perhaps,
that the executions were damaging e n o u g h to the C o m m u n e without the
participation of women in such an immoral act. Da Costa, so critical of
the women in the place Pigalle, declared that "on the rue des Rosiers, at
the h o u r of murder, they had for the most part disappeared." 1 0 8 Even
Edith Thomas, whose history of the C o m m u n e highlights women's ac-
tions, n o t e d merely that women were part of the crowd that "escorted and
insulted" the prisoners u p the butte f r o m the Chateau-Rouge. O n c e the
convoy had reached the rue des Rosiers, she m a d e n o f u r t h e r reference to
them. 1 0 9
T h e r e is n o question that women were present for the deaths of the gen-
erals (their disappearance f r o m the crowd at this point would be inexplic-
able), but exactly where they were and what they did is unclear. Some ac-
counts mention women a m o n g the crowd that tried to force its way into
the house. 1 1 0 Clemenceau "saw" weeping and shrieking women p o u r i n g
out of the house's courtyard (not the garden) when h e arrived. 1 1 1 T h e in-
ference that these women knew of, if they had n o t actually witnessed, the
executions is unmistakable. Lanjalley and Corriez place them a r o u n d the
garden on the other side of the house: "On all sides, there is an immense
crowd; women are there in large numbers. T h e walls of the garden are
crowned with spectators. This h u m a n throng d e m a n d s immediate execu-
tion." 1 1 2
We will never know exactly what h a p p e n e d in the garden and exactly
what role women played, although it seems safe to assume that they were
not directly responsible for the generals' deaths. No one, neither the
staunchest critics of the C o m m u n e n o r the guardsmen who were later tried
for the executions, placed guns in their hands or accused t h e m of partici-
pating in the firing squads. Aside f r o m this "fact," what we know is that ac-
cusations and r u m o r s a b o u n d e d and they conveyed emotional, if not lit-
eral, truths about the meaning of these deaths. O n the m o r n i n g of March
19, the Journal Officiel, still in the hands of the national government,
claimed that "the [generals'] bodies were mutilated by blows of bayo-
nets." 1 1 3 In 1871 J o a n n i d'Arsac, citing an u n n a m e d eyewitness, claimed
that "after these u n f o r t u n a t e victims had fallen, the assassins, overexcited
by their crime, defiled the corpses and stripped them of their clothes." 1 1 4
lOO
Claretie wrote a little after d'Arsac in a slightly m o r e restrained vein, "The

people of the crowd kicked and hit the old m a n ' s [Clement Thomas's]
body" as it lay on the g r o u n d . 1 1 5 General Appert repeated this claim in his
official report o n the C o m m u n e , adding that the bodies were "mutilat-
ed." 1 1 6
In his memoir, Clemenceau denied having watched "the National
Guardsmen executing a sort of danse macabre r o u n d the bodies." H e did
not deny that it had h a p p e n e d , merely that he had seen it. 1 1 7 By 1928
Georges Bourgin was writing that "they dragged [Lecomte's] body next to
that of Thomas, and again fired at the bodies, soon half-naked, and a r o u n d
them cries and chants rose in the bitter twilight." 118 Even what h a p p e n e d
next varies f r o m commentator to commentator. Alphonse Daudet believed
that the bodies lay "exposed" in the garden for two days, until, d'Arsac
added a bit later, doctors finally declared that their decomposition was a
health hazard. 1 1 9
In contrast to these versions of the generals' deaths and mistreatment,
Vizetelly r e p o r t e d that "at a rather late h o u r o n the evening of March 18,"
h e climbed the hill to the rue des Rosiers to see what was h a p p e n i n g . T h e
bodies had been moved inside the house and covered with a sheet. H e went
into
a bare r o o m w h e r e a tall candle was b u r n i n g o n a box. O n t h e floor beside

it, lay two bodies, o n e that of an elderly m a n with a full white b e a r d , a n d t h e
o t h e r t h a t of o n e who h a d b e e n struck down in t h e p r i m e of life, a n d w h o
h a d a small m o u s t a c h e a n d imperial [small b e a r d ] . I could see that t h e for-
m e r wore civilian garb, a n d t h e latter t h e u n i f o r m of a brigadier-general; b u t
the bodies were f o r t h e most p a r t covered with a large a n d somewhat blood-
stained sheet, which h a d b e e n thrown over t h e m in order, probably, to h i d e
the traces of t h e shots with which these m e n h a d b e e n d e s p a t c h e d in t h e gar-
d e n of t h e house, earlier in t h e day. . . . T h e y were t h e bodies of Generals
C l e m e n t T h o m a s a n d Lecomte, t h e first victims of t h e Rebellion of t h e Com-
mune.120
Many other sources report that late o n the night of the eighteenth, on
Clemenceau's order, the bodies were buried in a local cemetery. 1 2 1
Some of the atrocity stories seem m o r e plausible than others. It is possi-
ble that some of the soldiers, national guardsmen, and crowd kicked the
bodies of the d e a d generals, and s o m e o n e might have poked at t h e m with
a bayonet. People might have grabbed at torn pieces of clothing or other
souvenirs. It seems less likely that the bodies were stripped half naked
(Vizetelly reportedly saw clothing o n the bodies later that night), or that
the corpses were defiled or s u r r o u n d e d by singing, chanting people. But

we will never know for sure.
Women and children are p r o m i n e n t in some accounts. Claretie empha-
sized their role in precipitating the deaths: "The women and the children,
outside, screaming aloud, broke the windows. . . . It was a fever of mas-
sacre, a desire for blood which had taken hold of this mob, of these thou-
sands of spectators or anonymous actors who have appeared, unleashed in
their fury at certain dates in history. They want to kill and to see killing." 1 2 2
E. B. Washburne, the American minister to France, who was not an eye-
witness to any of the events in Montmartre b u t wrote as though h e were,
declared: "It was a strange sight to see the women and children all coming
into the streets, taking part with the insurrectionary forces and howling
like a pack of wolves." 123 T h e pro-Commune a u t h o r of La veritesurla Com-
mune, in contrast, saw the departing crowd as "pursued by remorse." 1 2 4
On April 3 E d m o n d de G o n c o u r t recorded o n e of the most lurid rumors
in his diary. Someone had told him that "after the execution of Clement
Thomas two women began to piss on the corpse, which was still warm." Re-
vealing some uneasiness about the veracity of the story, as well as about
journalists, h e added that "this terrible story was told [to my friend] the
very day of the execution, which removes the suspicion that it was m a d e
up by a journalist." 1 2 5
Some twentieth-century historians embellished even these accounts. In
1940, for instance, D. W. Brogan, building implicitly on Clemenceau's and
d'Arsac's texts (he does not cite his sources) claimed that "women [not na-
tional guardsmen, whom Clemenceau was accused of watching,] d a n c e d
obscenely r o u n d their bodies." 1 2 6 In 1965 Alistair H o m e , embroidering
(again implicitly) on Appert's r e p o r t and Goncourt's rumor, declared that
"some hideous scenes now ensued. T h e m e n continued to discharge their
rifles into the dead and mutilated bodies, while m a e n a d s f r o m the m o b
squatted and urinated u p o n them. Small urchins f o u g h t o n e a n o t h e r for
a view of the corpses f r o m the garden wall." 127
What is most noteworthy about the contemporary r u m o r s and the his-
torians' repetition and exaggeration of them is the intensifying focus o n
women. T h e identification of the C o m m u n e with the unruly woman had
begun. As historians and eyewitnesses alike sought to win allegiance to
their views of the C o m m u n e , depictions or representations of women be-
came crucial. Those who j u d g e d the C o m m u n e negatively, ascribed ob-
scene, immoral, and nefarious deeds to the women in the crowd. Those
who supported the C o m m u n e could only minimize their roles or ascribe
them to bad women, since they too were troubled by the presence of
women in these crowds.
lOO
T h e Pathological Crowd
T h e nineteenth-century explanation for the generals' executions was

that the crowd was in a pathological state when it accompanied the officers
u p the hill, tried to break its way into the house, and urged the soldiers and
national guardsmen to kill the prisoners. T h e concept of the pathological
crowd was not particularly precise or clinical in the 1870s. 1 2 8 J u d g i n g by
its usage in the early literature on the C o m m u n e , it was a way of both un-
derstanding and discrediting the crowd's actions. A m o b in the grip of a
pathology could hardly have had rational political goals.
In a letter written to the press on March 30, 1871, to d e f e n d himself
against accusations of having allowed the executions to take place,
Clemenceau described the crowd as "overexcited." 1 2 9 Later, when he had
to defend himself against accusations of complicity in the generals' deaths,
his assessment of the crowd's condition went well beyond overexcited. In-
deed, he said it was in the grip of
some kind of frenzy. . . . All were shrieking like wild beasts without realising
what they were doing. I observed t h e n that pathological p h e n o m e n o n which
m i g h t be called b l o o d lust. A b r e a t h of m a d n e s s s e e m e d to have passed over
this m o b . . . . w o m e n , dishevelled a n d emaciated, f l u n g their a r m s a b o u t
while uttering raucous cries, having apparently taken leave of their sens-
es. . . . Men were d a n c i n g a b o u t a n d jostling o n e a n o t h e r in a kind of savage
fury. It was o n e of those e x t r a o r d i n a r y n e r v o u s outbursts, so f r e q u e n t in t h e
Middle Ages, which still occur a m o n g s t masses of h u m a n beings u n d e r t h e
stress of s o m e primeval e m o t i o n . 1 3 0
Clemenceau's references to "wild beasts," "blood lust," "madness" and

"primeval emotion" e c h o e d the writings of Claretie and other conserva-
tives. Claretie believed the crowd's desire "to kill and to see killing" had
been unleashed by the food shortages of the siege. Starvation h a d t u r n e d
poor m e n into "beasts." "Human nature has these hours of crisis," h e said,
"where all that remains of bestiality in the h u m a n becomes nakedly visi-
ble." 1 3 1
T h e construction of the crowd as bloodthirsty began with eyewitnesses
like Beugnot. His brief description contained elements that would be em-
phasized later. "The crowd of beasts," h e said, "savage and u n c h a i n e d ,
wanted blood." 1 3 2 Soon the beasts became wolves. Alphonse Daudet, who
did n o t see the executions but visited the r u e des Rosiers a few days later,
likened the crowd to "wolves who smelled blood." 1 3 3 Washburne who sim-
ilarly was n o t present on the 18th, said the crowd was "howling like a pack
of wolves." 134
The notion of the pathological crowd r u n s through nineteenth-century
histories, whether favorable to the C o m m u n e or not. Da Costa, for in-
stance, who a b h o r r e d Claretie's politics, told his readers that they were "go-
ing to be present at o n e of the pathological crises c o m m o n in crowds over
which the shadow of revolution has passed. . . . the crowd was that day in
an u n d e f m a b l e pathological state." 1 3 5
These rudimentary psychological analyses also took into account what
was widely believed to be the crowd's subsequent behavior. Bad as the
killing of the generals was, according to Claretie (who certainly did not ex-
onerate the crowd), it had had the salutary effect of satiating the crowds'
bloodlust. As soon as the generals were dead, the crowd was overwhelmed
by "a strange stupor. Montmartre fell silent. Fear set in and they set the oth-
er prisoners free. T h e deaths in the r u e des Rosiers saved the life of the
other [prisoners]." 1 3 6 Others e c h o e d this view. Paraphrasing Claretie,
General Appert declared that "after this double crime, a kind of stupor
took hold of the crowd. It drifted away silently and as though it were
afraid." 1 3 7 T h e C o m m u n a r d a u t h o r of La verite sur la Commune agreed:
"When the two bodies were on the ground, two soldiers again exasperat-
edly discharged their rifles into Lecomte; then suddenly a great silence fell;
the exaltation of the m u r d e r s p l u n g e d abruptly; there was a m o m e n t of
stupor." 1 3 8 These accounts of the crowd's lassitude after the generals'
deaths, written by m e n who were n o t present at the time, may express the
magnitude of the event better than they d o the facts, since they are con-
tradicted by the statements of others who were at the r u e des Rosiers. Both
Beugnot and Clemenceau, who arrived immediately afterward, wrote lat-
er of their certainty that they, too, were in grave danger. 1 3 9 Clemenceau,
in fact, thought the situation h e e n c o u n t e r e d outside the house on the r u e
des Rosiers was becoming "more and m o r e dangerous." "This crazed mob,"
he wrote, "was looking at m e suspiciously while uttering the cry of 'Down
with the traitors!' Several fists were raised." Explaining why h e did not en-
ter the house, h e said that h e had "a p r o f o u n d conviction that I should n o t
come o u t of it alive." 140 ]
Adolphe Thiers, whose desire to wrest control of the cannons f r o m the
Parisians precipitated the revolt, used a version of the pathological crowd
to d e f e n d his decision to withdraw f r o m the city in the early a f t e r n o o n . Un-
like Claretie, who viewed the crowd's madness as dissipating rapidly once
the generals were dead, Thiers saw it as an insidious and contagious dis-
ease f r o m which his troops must be protected. "Were we to stay in Paris,"
he explained, "the moral infection would lay hold of the army, which
would n o t be long before a b a n d o n i n g us." 1 4 1
Women and Children
Street children who appeared wherever there was trouble or excitement

were a standard feature of Parisian life. They were the gamins of France ear-
lier immortalized in Victor Hugo's novel Les Miserables and in Delacroix's
painting Liberty Quiding the People on the Ramparts (see fig. 2). Virtually every
description of a crowd'and every encounter between people and police in
the nineteenth century mentions them. March 18 is n o exception. In the
primary accounts, children swarm u p the hill with the women in the morn-
ing, throw stones and caps and vegetables at the officers, brandish "inde-
scribable trophies" after the execution, and struggle "to obtain a view of
the bodies" late that night. 1 4 2 In later histories they also sit on top of the
s a r d e n wall at 6, r u e des Rosiers "with their legs swinging" and their fin-
gers pointing at the generals' bodies. -
Children are most important in these texts, however, n o t as gamins or in-
d e p e n d e n t actors but in their connection to women. O n the butte in the
morning, women and children are commonly linked together. A standard
assumption of eyewitnesses and historians is that the psychological diffi-
culty the soldiers faced when they were c o m m a n d e d to hold their g r o u n d
and perhaps to fire u p o n their fellow countrymen was c o m p o u n d e d by the
fact that the "enemy" was n o t simply other F r e n c h m e n . Those who be-
lieved that Lecomte h a d given the order to fire o n the crowd stated his
"crime" most forcefully when they pointed out that h e h a d asked t h e m to
fire o n women and children. Others believed that Lecomte did n o t give
the order to fire, precisely because there were women and children in the
crowd. 1 4 4 T h e message of both versions is clear. Women and children were
defined as innocents in a way that men, even u n a r m e d civilians, were not.
Firing u p o n t h e m was a worse crime, in everyone's eyes, than firing u p o n
men, and it helped determine the outcome of the conflict.
In most accounts, both women and children forfeited this innocence lat-
er in the day when they called for and reveled in the m u r d e r of the gen-
erals. During the Versaillais killing spree that e n d e d the C o m m u n e in May,
the army would exact expiation. T h r e e women, four children, and forty-
two m e n would be forced to kneel by the garden wall at 6, r u e des Rosiers
where they would be executed in retaliation for the deaths of the gener-
als. 1 4 5 T h a t these women, men, and children could not be identified as par-
ticipants in the events of March 18, or even as having watched or encour-

aged the executions, was irrelevant to the government.
T h e working-class women of Montmartre are only the first of many

women to act on the stage of the C o m m u n e . They, like their sisters who
appear in later acts, reveal the g e n d e r conceptualizations of their creators
and beckon to us to watch and listen and pass j u d g m e n t on the C o m m u n e .
They appear in three guises. T h e positive representations are nonviolent
women who confront a r m e d troops. In their most virtuous incarnation,
they risk death, appeal to the soldiers' sense of right and wrong, and en-
treat them n o t to fire on their fellow citizens. Their actions are not so m u c h
political as moral, and their goodness is c o n f i r m e d by references to the
presence of children. These women are mothers, sisters, and wives. In a
less virtuous but still acceptable incarnation, women c o n f r o n t the soldiers
more angrily and criticize them for their very presence in the streets, but
they too act out of a moral sense with which n o o n e takes issue. In their
most negative incarnation, women are n o longer calm and brave mothers
but a horrible phalanx of d r u n k e n prostitutes who thirst for blood, howl
for death, shriek and dance raucously when it has b e e n achieved, and de-
file the bodies of m u r d e r e d m e n . T h e positive images portray what were
perceived as the natural and saintly virtues of women; the negative, their
frightening, unnatural (although the extent to which their actions were
natural or u n n a t u r a l was always in question, given perceptions of their na-
ture as dichotomous), sexual, and by implication, evil side.
W h e t h e r they believed that the women in the m o r n i n g and a f t e r n o o n
crowds were the same or different, contemporaries and historians pre-
sented t h e m in dichotomous good-and-evil terms. Either the good women
of the m o r n i n g crowds were overcome by a pathological bloodlust that
t u r n e d them into bad women, or the good housewives were replaced by
bad prostitutes. In both cases, the array of complex, hardworking, poor,
resourceful, angry, frightened, and sometimes politically committed
women, whose actions helped defeat the government's plan to remove
the cannons f r o m Montmartre and who would suffer e n o r m o u s losses in
April and May 1871 is missing. Instead, we have a set of binarily opposed
images—good/bad, calm/agitated, food-giving/death-desiring, brave/
bloodthirsty, and maternal/sexual.
T h r o u g h these portrayals of women, writers have made, and have wished
us to make, moral j u d g m e n t s about the C o m m u n e . Making "proper" judg-
ments d e p e n d s u p o n understanding their symbolic content. Allegory
works only as long as observers share the cultural assumptions of its ere-
lOO
ators. T h a t twentieth-century histories repeat and even magnify the hor-

rific constructions of the women in the Montmartre crowds is evidence that
the gender assumptions that gave these representations meaning contin-
ued well after the C o m m u n e ' s short life h a d ended. Their disappearance
from more recent histories is evidence that these assumptions have b e g u n
to change. Ironically, that change has m a d e women less rather than m o r e
visible in histories of the C o m m u n e .
w
C H A P T E R T W O
Remembering and Representing
B
y the m o r n i n g of March 19, Paris was calm. A red flag flew over the
Hotel d e Ville. Inside the f a m o u s city hall of Paris, the National
G u a r d Central C o m m i t t e e m a d e plans. In the hallways, exhausted
guardsmen leaned against the walls a n d slept. Across the city, others took
possession of the ministries, the telegraph office, the Journal Officiel, and
the Prefecture of Police. Soldiers c o n t i n u e d to leave the city. T h e "riot and
confusion" that the Daily Neius c o r r e s p o n d e n t a n d others h a d g o n e to b e d
expecting were n o w h e r e to be seen. 1 N e i g h b o r h o o d shops were o p e n as
usual a n d everyday life c o n t i n u e d u n a b a t e d , albeit with some new distrac-
tions: the Central C o m m i t t e e posters d e c o r a t e d the walls of Paris, barri-
cades blocked streets, a n d national g u a r d s m e n posed proudly for photog-
raphers. T h e revolution h a d succeeded, at least for the m o m e n t . 2
While conservatives a n d foreigners were surprised by how quickly o r d e r
had b e e n reestablished in Paris, they were "surprised" by virtually n o t h i n g
else that the revolutionaries did or that they imagined they h a d d o n e . Un-
able to shed their "memories" of o t h e r revolutions or their fear of the work-
ing class, whose motives a n d intelligence they viewed with p r o f o u n d suspi-
cion, bourgeois observers of the C o m m u n e identified the m e n a n d w o m e n
of 1871 with those of the revolution that began in 1789 a n d expected t h e m
to act as they " r e m e m b e r e d " the Jacobins a n d sans-culottes h a d acted
then. 3 Expecting mayhem, pillage, a n d class war, they saw it everywhere.
T h e soon-to-be C o m m u n a r d s ' view of themselves a n d their cause dif-
fered radically f r o m that of the conservatives. T h e i r "memories" of the
French Revolution were positive r a t h e r than negative, a n d they saw their
57
struggle in political rather than class terms. They sought accommodation

rather than confrontation with the government in Versailles, although the
communardes occasionally h o p e d to repeat their ancestors' march to Ver-
sailles and to capture Thiers as they had captured the king. No matter what
the revolutionaries did or said, however, most bourgeois could see only what
they expected to see. These differences of perception and representation,
combined with Thiers's and the army's desire to reverse the humiliation
they had just suffered, made compromise and negotiation impossible.
C o m m u n a r d women provoked a special measure of fear. T h e working-
class National Guard and the m e n elected to office during the C o m m u n e ,
seen as jealous and vengeful proletarians who wanted to steal the bour-
geoisie's property and power, were dangerous e n o u g h . But women posed
even greater threats to the social order. Rumors that they had been pre-
sent at the deaths of Generals Lecomte and Clement T h o m a s and perhaps
had even d e m a n d e d their deaths and defiled their bodies, recalled the
specter of the Terror and the tricoteuses. Enshrined in popular lore, the lat-
ter were said to have knitted at the foot of the guillotine while heads rolled.
These "memories," combined with the bourgeois distrust of the working
class, meant the battle j o i n e d on the eighteenth was far f r o m over on the
nineteenth.
T h e Struggle Takes S h a p e
T h e hopes, fears, memories, and representations that would plague the

C o m m u n e t h r o u g h o u t its short life were present, at least in embryo, o n
March 19. T h e workers were ebullient. They h a d won. T h e cannons had
b e e n saved. T h e government had fled. T h e army had refused to fire o n the
people. T h e republic had b e e n protected f r o m the monarchists in the Na-
tional Assembly. Paris would receive self-government. T h e C o m m u n e ,
revered by the workers of Paris since the Revolution of 1789, would be
reestablished. Several observers described the celebratory m o o d of the
Parisians. T h e Reverend Mr. Gibson, for instance, recorded that "the
square in front of the Hotel de Ville was filled with National Guards, who
seemed to have nothing to d o but to enjoy themselves in the bright sun,"
and the Daily News reported that it was a "fete day." 4
T h e bourgeoisie feared that the workers were right. They were incredu-
lous that the government had b e e n so easily defeated, and normalcy so
quickly reestablished. Catulle Mendes was pained that the Central Com-
mittee's a n n o u n c e m e n t s appeared on white paper, the color reserved for
government use and a sign that there was indeed a new government in
Remembering and Representing 59
Paris. 5 T h e names on the posters were similarly distressing. Most of these

pien were completely unknown to the general public. E d m o n d de
Goncourt t h o u g h t the list must be "ajoke." "After Assi's n a m e the least un-
known is that of Lullier," he wrote in his diary, "[and he] is notoriously
mad." 6 More important for the future, Goncourt was overcome "with dis-
gust" at the national guardsmen's "stupid and abject faces, where triumph
and drunkenness have implanted a radiant debauchery," and h e and his
friends worried about where this left-wing revolution "made with m e n from
the very bottom" would ultimately lead. 7 This distrust of and disdain for the
working class and its political leaders would not abate in the coming weeks.
At least o n e observer, the Times correspondent, focused his suspicion
and memories of dark deeds on the women in the crowds that strolled
around the city, examining the barricades and posters. "The women," h e
declared, "especially seem[ed] in their element," adding that they went
about "with babies wherever barricades are to be built, or police agents
drowned." 8 T h e latter reference was to the killing of a police spy, Vincen-
zoni, on January 28. A g r o u p of Parisians had tied him up, thrown him into
the canal near the place de la Bastille, and stoned him as his body floated
downstream. As o n March 18, both m e n and women were involved, 9 but
women's actions were more memorable. T h e m e n ' s behavior had crossed
moral lines, but the women's had crossed gender lines as well and it was thus
more alarming. It was more effective in generating unease, even though the
bulk of the revolutionaries, in both instances, probably were men.
Inside the Hotel de Ville indecision reigned. T h e m e m b e r s of the Na-
tional Guard Central Committee, who had spent the previous day trying to
catch u p with the revolt, f o u n d themselves thrust into power by the na-
tional government's flight, but they had too little political experience to
know how to consolidate the people's victory. 10 Some argued for direct ac-
tion: the National Guard had won; it should now take control of the city
and march on Versailles. Others u r g e d caution, pointing out that the com-
mittee had n o legitimate power to govern (or to send the National Guard
outside the city). Some believed the committee should organize elections
to a municipal council (the Commune), which could negotiate with Ver-
sailles as the people's representatives; others (the mayors of the twenty ar-
rondissements of Paris, led by Georges Clemenceau) disputed the right of
the Committee to govern at all and urged negotiation rather than elec-
tions. T h e Central Committee, for its part, feared negotiation would lead
to capitulation as it had in 1830 and 1848.
O n March 19, before the Central Committee could seize control of the
official government newspaper, the Journal Officiel, the national govern-
ment p r o d u c e d o n e final issue, in which it positioned itself as the defend-
lOO
er of morality and order. "A Committee, calling itself the Central Com-
mittee, . . . has shot the defenders of order," it a n n o u n c e d . It "has taken
prisoners, [and] has cold-bloodedly m u r d e r e d General Clement T h o m a s
and a g e n e r a l of the French army, General Lecomte." 1 1 T h e accusation was
untrue. T h e Central Committee had h a d n o t h i n g to d o with the killing of
the generals, and national guardsmen had protected t h e m as long as they
could f r o m the m o b that clamored for their deaths and the soldiers who
finally shot them.
T h e Central Committee d e n i e d the accusation in the next edition, but
sought to explain rather than to c o n d e m n "the regrettable facts" of the
generals' deaths so as n o t to disavow the Parisians who had led the revolt
against the government. Lecomte, they pointed out, had o r d e r e d his
troops to fire on the "inoffensive crowd of women and children" and had
been shot by soldiers of the line. Clement T h o m a s had b e e n "spying" on
the defenses of Montmartre, and had been executed by national guards-
m e n . 1 2 Even if these statements were absolutely accurate, and the Central
Committee believed they were, they did not alter the f u n d a m e n t a l prob-
lem that the generals' deaths had created. T h e fledgling C o m m u n a r d s had
lost the moral high ground. Now Versailles and the conservatives viewed
them as villains, n o t victims.
The outcome of the dispute between Versailles and Paris could n o t be
foreseen on the nineteenth. How long the revolution would last was as un-
predictable as the exodus of the government from Paris had b e e n the day
before. What the city's new leaders might achieve was unknown. T h a t the
revolt would end in a slaughter that would sicken even the C o m m u n e ' s
most ardent critics was unimaginable. Those who knew Thiers well and
those with experience of earlier repressions in France worried about what
he would d o next, b u t n o o n e believed the government of France would
lay siege to the city as the Prussians had, m u c h less that the army would in-
vade it and kill Parisians by the thousands. More worrisome at the outset
was the possibility of Prussian action if the national government with which
it had signed a peace treaty were attacked by Paris.
Unable to persuade Thiers to negotiate a settlement, the Central Com-
mittee t u r n e d to governing and organizing the election of a municipal
council. It took control of the mairies and ministries, lifted martial law,
reestablished the f r e e d o m of the press, granted amnesty to political pris-
oners, and negotiated loans with Baron Rothschild and the governor of the
Bank of France so it could pay the National Guard. Thousands of guards-
m e n c a m p e d out at the Hotel de Ville and moved a r o u n d the city, staff of-
ficers on horseback in full uniforms, the rank and file on foot. 1 3 Feeling it
had d o n e n o wrong, indeed, feeling it had fem wronged, both when Thiers
allowed the Prussians to march triumphally through the streets of Paris, 1 4
and when Thiers and the army attempted to take its guns by force, the Na-
tional Guard had n o intention of surrendering the city or its cannons to
Versailles and the army.
R e p r e s e n t i n g t h e Conflict
While Thiers and the National Assembly repeatedly accused the Central
Committee (and subsequently the C o m m u n e ) of assassinating Generals
Lecomte and Clement Thomas, the conflict between Paris and the national
government in Versailles had little to d o with the generals' deaths. T h e ac-
cusations were simply a convenient and effective means of putting the com-
mittee o n the moral defensive. T h e clash was about political philosophies,
class interests, and political conflicts that had led to Thiers's attempt to
seize the cannons.
How each side saw and presented the dispute d e p e n d e d to a large ex-
tent on what it thought the m e n on the other side were doing or would do.
When the conflict was perceived as class war or as a battle for Parisian self-
rule, women were irrelevant. They were not m e m b e r s of the Central Com-
mittee, C o m m u n a l Council, or National Guard. They were n o t leaders of
the International or a m o n g the "scum of Europe" that the bourgeoisie be-
lieved had gathered in Paris to fight for the C o m m u n e . Nor were they con-
sidered true members of the proletariat, even though they worked in fac-
tories alongside men. Reformers like the C o m m u n a r d s tended to agree.
They, too, believed the problems of the working-class family could be
solved by getting the wife and m o t h e r out of the labor force and into the
home. If they were workers, they should not be. O r to p u t it as Jules Simon
had in i860, "The woman who becomes a worker is n o longer a woman." 1 5
True workers (those who did not violate their nature by working) were
m e n . 1 6 Similarly, the leaders of the C o m m u n e gave little or n o thought to
extending political self-determination to women, and its political and mil-
itary enemy in Versailles was clearly male.
W h e n the conflict was seen in terms of the past, however, women were
central. T h e n bourgeois fears identified the c o m m u n a r d e s with the trico-
teuses of the French Revolution, and the C o m m u n e ' s threat was repre-
sented in female form.
Class War versus Self-Rule
T h e leaders of the revolt (and their followers) espoused a variety of de-

mocratic and socialist philosophies, but they generally agreed that the re-
lOO
volt was about who would govern Paris. In the list of demands it presented
to the National Assembly, the Central Committee placed municipal liber-
ties for the city first. 1 7 T h e revolutionaries wanted the right to select the
arrondissement mayors and to elect a Parisian municipal council with the
power to make and enforce laws without the intervention of the National
Assembly, a right that Paris alone a m o n g French cities did not have. Sec-
ond, it wanted the Prefecture of Police and its gendarmes, repressors of the
working class, suppressed. Third, the Committee wanted autonomy for the
National Guard, that is, the right to n a m e its own chiefs, rather than have
them chosen and imposed u p o n them by the government, and the right to
reorganize itself, as it already had, in a relatively democratic fashion.
Fourth, it wanted the army forbidden to enter Paris. If the city were at-
tacked, the National Guard would defend it (hence the desire to retain
control of the cannons). Fifth, it wanted the recently passed laws on rents
and overdue bills changed. And finally, it wanted the National Assembly to
proclaim the republic as the legitimate government of France, and to as-
sure the people that it would not be u n d e r m i n e d and overthrown as the
Second Republic had been by Louis Napoleon at the end of 1851. 1 8
To concede to these political demands would have b e e n to transfer con-
siderable power f r o m the hands of the conservative and monarchist-lean-
ing national government to working-class and republican Parisians. This
Thiers and other conservatives were unwilling to do. For them, the con-
flict was n o t about self-government for Paris but about who—what class—
would govern France. T h e controlling figure in this struggle was Adolphe
Thiers, whose conflict with the workers of Paris was of long standing. As
Louis-Philippe's minister of the interior, he had approved the July Monar-
chy's 1834 Law on Associations, which made it possible for the government
to repress workers' organizations and prosecute their leaders. T h a t same
year, he had organized the violent repression of the workers' revolts in
Paris and Lyons, and h e had b e e n o n e of the architects of the September
Laws, which closed down the Republican and Legitimist press. By 1848 he
had come to believe that the working class would "ruin the country f r o m
top to bottom" if its socialist tendencies were n o t restrained. In 1850 he
supported a new electoral law that excluded about one-third of the voters,
a m o n g t h e m the militant Left and workers. T h e attempt to wrest the can-
nons out of the hands of the working-class units of the National Guard and
to place t h e m u n d e r the army's control was only the latest in this series of
repressive actions by the man who now was the h e a d of the national gov-
ernment.19
While the National Guard Central Committee was drawing u p its politi-
cal platform, the national government was d e n o u n c i n g t h e m as criminels
artisans, and e n u m e r a t i n g their past and anticipated f u t u r e "crimes." Sug-

gesting nefarious allegiances, the government asked, "Who are the mem-
bers of this committee? . . . Are they Communists, Bonapartists, or Prus-
sians? Are they the agents of a triple coalition? Whatever they are, they are
the enemies of Paris which they will deliver u p to pillage; of France which
they will deliver to the Prussians; of the republic which they will deliver u p
to despotism." 2 0
These insinuations m a d e good reading and placed the Central Com-
mittee on the defensive, but they were hardly accurate. Parisians in gener-
al, including the National Guard (from which the Central Committee was
derived) had opposed the peace treaty with Prussia and its triumphal pa-
rade through Paris, and only an odd twist of logic could now make t h e m
collaborators with the Prussians. Nor were the C o m m u n a r d s Bonapartists
or despots. Whatever else they were, the m e n and women who led and sup-
ported the C o m m u n e were republicans; they had opposed the Second Em-
pire and cheered its demise in September. These accusations would quick-
ly fade.
The references to criminals, communists, and pillaging would recur con-
tinually, however. According to the d o m i n a n t perception at Versailles, the
male revolutionaries were workers whose class and self-interests had r u n
amok (i.e., they were communists), who envied the bourgeoisie's wealth
and property and intended to pillage it (i.e., they were criminals). This view
and the emotions it evoked were widely shared a m o n g the bourgeois. It un-
derlay Goncourt's remark on the nineteenth about the "radiant debauch-
ery" of the guardsmen and his fuller expression on March 28. "What is hap-
pening," he wrote then, "is very simply the conquest of France by the
workers and the enslavement u n d e r their despotism of the nobles, the
bourgeois, and the peasants. T h e government is passing f r o m the hands of
those who have to those who have not, from those who have a material in-
terest in the conservation of society to those who are completely uninter-
ested in order, stability, or conservation." Perhaps, he mused, "the workers
are for m o d e r n civilization what the barbarians were for ancient societies,
convulsive agents of dissolution and destruction." 2 1
T h a t the Central Committee and C o m m u n e r e o p e n e d the stock ex-
change, negotiated loans f r o m the Bank of France, and established a
schedule for the repayment of debts, rather than simply expropriating the
bank's funds, m e a n t little in the intellectual and emotional climate of
1871. What mattered to the bourgeoisie was that the people of Mont-
martre whose actions h a d precipitated the revolution and the battalions of
the National Guard that had supported it, as well as the elected members
of the Central Committee and the C o m m u n e , were themselves either work-
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ers (loosely d e f i n e d ) o r allies of t h e w o r k i n g class. If t h e rebels were work-

ers t h e r e b e l l i o n c o u l d only b e a class war.
T h e s u p p o r t of l a b o r unionists, t h e I n t e r n a t i o n a l W o r k i n g M e n ' s Asso-
ciation, various g r o u p s of socialists, a n d t h e a u t h o r s of The Communist Man-
ifesto (Karl M a r x a n d F r i e d r i c h Engels) f o r t h e C o m m u n e f u r t h e r rein-
f o r c e d t h e b o u r g e o i s n o t i o n of class war. J o u r n a l i s t s regularly r e f e r r e d to
t h e "Reds" in Paris a n d u s e d " c o m m u n i s t " as a synonym f o r " c o m m u n a r d , "
even t h o u g h t h e C o m m u n a r d s m a d e n o attack o n private p r o p e r t y (aside
f r o m t h a t of T h i e r s ) a n d d i d n o t even take c o n t r o l of t h e B a n k of F r a n c e ' s
assets
T h e varied political views of t h e e l e c t e d m e m b e r s of t h e C o m m u n e , as
well as t h e w o r k e r s of P a r i s — r a n g i n g f r o m neo-Jacobinism to P r o u d h o n -
ism to B l a n q u i s m to c o m m u n i s m — w e r e similarly irrelevant to conserva-
t i v e s 22 F r o m t h e i r perspective, t h e similarities in these positions out-
w e i g h e d t h e d i f f e r e n c e s . Even t h e mildest socialist m e a s u r e s t a k e n by t h e
C o m m u n e , such as t h e abolition of fines f o r carelessness in factories, t h e
r e o p e n i n g of a b a n d o n e d factories as cooperatives, a n d t h e fixing of t h e
salary of e l e c t e d representatives at "the o r d i n a r y wages of a skilled work-
m a n " were e n o u g h to convince conservatives t h a t its i n t e n t i o n s were com-
m u n i s t i c . 2 3 T h e same was t r u e of t h e laws t h a t b e n e f i t e d t h e workers a n d
c o d i f i e d t h e working-class view of r i g h t a n d w r o n g , such as t h e remission
of back r e n t f r o m t h e p e r i o d of t h e Prussian siege, a three-year m o r a t o r i -
u m o n t h e r e p a y m e n t of debts, a n d t h e release of all h o u s e h o l d g o o d s a n d
work tools v a l u e d at less t h a n twenty f r a n c s f r o m t h e state-run p a w n s h o p .
S u c h laws c o n v i n c e d M a x i m e D u C a m p a n d o t h e r conservatives t h a t
"what t h e C o m m u n e s t o o d f o r — c o n t i n u e s to stand f o r — i s instant substi-
tution of t h e p r o l e t a r i a t f o r all o t h e r classes of society, in p r o p e r t y own-
ership, in a d m i n i s t r a t i o n , in t h e exercise of power." 2 5 Like Thiers, w h o s e
views were e n s h r i n e d in t h e n a t i o n a l g o v e r n m e n t ' s initial p r o c l a m a t i o n s
a b o u t t h e criminal n a t u r e of t h e r e b e l l i o n , D u C a m p , writing in 1881, at-
t r i b u t e d t h e r e b e l l i o n to t h e envy t h a t led Cain to kill Abel, t h e envy of
t h o s e w h o "hate to work" a n d p r e f e r "warfare to daily travail." 2 6 It was a sig-
nificant revision of t h e C a i n a n d Abel story, b u t it fit t h e c o m m o n n o t i o n
t h a t t h e n a t i o n a l g u a r d s m e n p r e f e r r e d playing at soldiering to w o r k i n g f o r
a living.
S o m e b o u r g e o i s w h o viewed t h e r e b e l l i o n as class struggle were Sympa-
thie to t h e workers. William Gibson, a British M e t h o d i s t minister with a
small c o n g r e g a t i o n in Paris, c o m b i n e d p a r t s of t h e g o v e r n m e n t ' s a n d t h e
C o m m u n a r d s ' views o n t h e revolt, r e g a r d i n g it b o t h as a working-class
struggle f o r social justice a n d as a n a t t e m p t to o b t a i n m u n i c i p a l liberties
f o r Parisians. H e r e p o r t e d in a letter o n April 7 t h a t h e h a d j u s t r e a d a "sig-
nificant paragraph" in the newspapers which showed that "for the same
room occupied by a workman the rent has b e e n trebled within the last eigh-
teen years." For this and other reasons, h e concluded, "the notion, right
or wrong, that the workmen are spending muscle and brain to enrich cap-
italists, without getting a corresponding increase in wages in proportion to
the increasing value of their labour, is laying hold of the whole class of
workers." H e concluded not unsympathetically that "this 'proletariat' con-
troversy which is at the bottom of all, is the great question for the next gen-
eration to settle." 27
As the weeks passed and Versailles propaganda m a d e its way into Paris,
bourgeois sympathy for the C o m m u n e was u n d e r m i n e d , and m e n like Gib-
son moved closer and closer to the Versailles perspective. O n April 18, for
instance, Gibson observed, "The m o r e I get to know about this insurrec-
tionary movement the more I am convinced that it is a great effort of the
Red Republican party in Europe to gain their ends. . . . T h e 'word of or-
der' to these people is said to come from the International Society in Lon-
don! . . . T h e scum of Europe has been collected in Paris to fight out this
battle." 2 8
Caricaturists took a different tack. Instead of representing the Commu-
nards as criminals, they presented t h e m as drunkards, playing u p a n o t h e r
widespread belief. 2 9 Less villainous than the "scum of Europe" Gibson
imagined, the national guardsmen and elected officials of the caricatur-
ists' imagination were depicted lying across benches and tables with drinks
in their hands, alternately leering and staring vacantly, clearly incapable of
either defending or governing the C o m m u n e (see fig. 8). T h o u g h un-
questionably critical of the C o m m u n e , the caricatures resembled comic
opera m o r e than a life-and-death struggle between good and evil.
More serious was the French bourgeoisie's conviction that the Commu-
nards would turn to theft now that they had political power. T h r o u g h o u t
the rebellion, the bourgeoisie accused the C o m m u n a r d s of pillaging
homes, churches, and government buildings, beginning on the m o r n i n g
of March 19, when the national government warned that the revolution-
aries, regardless of their political sentiments, would "deliver Paris u p to pil-
laging." 30 Fear for their property soon t u r n e d the warning to conviction
and accusation.
Articles in p r o - C o m m u n e newspapers c o n d e m n i n g pillaging, decrees of
the C o m m u n a l Council that pillaging would be punished, and the state-
ments of sympathetic (or at least somewhat sympathetic) observers that re-
markably little pillaging was taking place had little or n o effect on conser-
vative convictions. 3 1 What the government proclaimed against, the
bourgeoisie believed. Gibson reported on April 13, for instance, "What
lOO
makes everyone so full of fear in these troublesome times is that n u m b e r s

of m e n u n d e r the n a m e of the C o m m u n e go about to pillage." 32 A few days
later, h e noted: "A young Englishman residing in Paris. . . said that the cur-
rent opinion was that a great attack by the Versailles troops was expected
within the next week, and at the same time by the insurgents a blow-up of
some of the streets, and a general pillage!" 3 3 In the same vein, Philibert
Audebrand, writing in the immediate aftermath of the semaine sanglante,
accused the C o m m u n e of having "organized pillaging" and even of having
"raised it to a civic virtue." 3 4
General Appert's final r e p o r t to the National Assembly as well as con-
servatives' memoirs and histories included pillaging in their litanies of the
C o m m u n e ' s "crimes." 35 Appert's list was detailed. O n c e the war between
Paris and Versailles resumed in early April, he wrote, "countless pillages . . .
desolated the city"; churches were "invaded, profaned, and looted"; when
priests were arrested, their personal property was "stolen"; "armoires were
broken open and emptied"; national guardsmen who were billeted in pri-
vate homes "took things at their convenience"; the National Guard refused
to allow servants to stay behind to guard their masters' homes when Neuil-
ly was evacuated, so they could act on their "secret desires . . . [and] pillage
the a b a n d o n e d buildings. . . . gowns of silk and velvet, shawls, lace, linens,
curtains, clocks, paintings, curios and objets d'art, everything that could
be carried was selected, packed up, and sent back to Paris." Finally, in a
flight of what appears to be complete fantasy, Appert r e p o r t e d that the
looters held "hideous balls where the thieves wore the spoils of their vic-
tims, accompanied by their concubines and wives." 36 Women certainly
were not innocent in this presentation of the C o m m u n e ' s crimes, b u t their
guilt was by association.
Reign of T e r r o r
In contrast, another bourgeois conviction—that the C o m m u n e would

institute a reign of terror—drew m u c h of its inspiration from bourgeois
representations of revolutionary women. T h e exact content of the reign-
of-terror accusation was often vague, but its origins were clear. They lay in
the bourgeoisie's memories of the French Revolution. Any law passed or
action taken by the C o m m u n e or the National Guard, as well as rumors
about events (or even nonevents), could bring cries of a reign of t e r r o r
British journalists raised the specter first, on March 20. "Last night," a
Times correspondent in Paris wrote in the chatty style of the day, "many peo-
ple were half expecting a Reign of Terror, in the best style of the last cen-
Remembering and Representing 6 7
tury, and dire was the consternation of innocent tourists—fathers of fami-

lies and newly married couples—who had r u n over to Paris to look for the
traces of the b o m b a r d m e n t and pick u p 'relics of the siege.'" 3 7
Events in Paris soon added fuel to the fear. O n March 23, o p p o n e n t s of
the revolution calling themselves the Friends of O r d e r marched down the
rue de la Paix toward the place Vendome and the National Guard. Confi-
dent of success, the Friends of O r d e r (with the tacit support of the Ver-
sailles government) insulted the guards and pressed toward them. T h e
guardsmen d e m a n d e d that the demonstrators stop and disperse. Shots
were eventually fired (at whose instigation is unknown). T h e Friends fled.
Ten demonstrators and two national guardsmen lay dead; several more o n
each side were wounded. 3 8 Called "the massacre in the rue de la Paix" by
the conservative press, the deaths created "agitation and alarm" in Ver-
sailles and became f u r t h e r " p r o o f ' (along with the deaths of Generals
Lecomte and Clement Thomas) of the bloodthirstiness of the revolution
to distribute in the provinces. 3 9
O n April 4 the C o m m u n e passed the decree for which it would be most
criticized. In response to the executions of Generals Emile Duval and Gus-
tave Flourens by the army, it decided to hold anyone convicted of com-
plicity with the Versailles government hostage and declared that the Com-
m u n e would respond to all executions of C o m m u n a r d prisoners by
shooting triple that n u m b e r of hostages. 4 0 In the next few weeks, the Com-
m u n e took Monsignor Georges Darboy, archbishop of Paris; J u d g e Louis-
Bertrand Bonjean, the f o r m e r president of the Parisian Supreme Court;
and a variety of priests hostage. Versailles took the holding of hostages and
the ferocious rhetoric of Raoul Rigault, the delegate to the Prefecture of
Police (who was in charge of the prisoners), as f u r t h e r proof that a reign
of terror was beginning in Paris. It was n o t induced, however, to treat its
own prisoners more humanely, and the executions of captured soldiers
and guardsmen continued. Meanwhile, in Paris the hostages were not
h a r m e d until after the Versailles troops invaded the city in May and began
wholesale execution of the guardsmen who surrendered to them.
T h e institution of conscription for the National Guard on April 7 and
subsequent attempts to enforce it raised f u r t h e r cries of a reign of terror
even f r o m m e n like Gibson, who was initially sympathetic to the Com-
mune. "We are truly u n d e r a 'Reign of Terror,'" h e m o a n e d on April 14,
when a woman who had worked for him as a servant told him that "her
husband had been taken off by some National Guards and forced into a
compagnie de Marche three days ago, and she had heard nothing from him
since." 41
English observers may have been particularly sensitive to the conscrip-
lOO
tion decree because young Englishmen who spoke French, including

Vizetelly, frequently had to p r o d u c e official identification to avoid being
pressed into service. At least o n e young Englishman who was in the wrong
place at the wrong time was forced to serve in the National Guard. 4 2 Such
stories became grist for the Versailles press, which regarded conscription
into the National Guard as tantamount to forced labor. Bourgeois Parisians
who did n o t want to serve first hid in the city and then tried to flee. Some
escaped easily. Others "let themselves down from the ramparts at night by
means of ropes" or "dressed themselves u p as girls" and tried to escape by
train. 4 3
Supporters of the C o m m u n e were n o t above calling for a new reign of
terror. O n May 7 G o n c o u r t visited the first meeting of the political club at
the church of Saint-Eustache, where h e heard "a m a n in pearl-gray trousers
. . . in a raging voice declare that Terror is the only way to ensure victory."
H e d e m a n d e d , according to Goncourt, the establishment of a revolution-
ary tribunal, "so the heads of traitors may roll immediately o n the square,"
and his proposal received "frenzied applause." 4 4 Such statements voiced
the worst fears of the bourgeoisie.
For many bourgeois, the anticlerical attitudes of many C o m m u n a r d s
were linked with the idea of the Terror. T h e anti-Commune press regular-
ly reported that priests and n u n s were being arrested, harassed, and even
executed 4 5 T h e Journal de Bruxelles r e p o r t e d o n April 6, for instance: "A
n u n , who has hastily fled f r o m Paris, brings us intelligence to the effect that
the churches are being sacked and the cures arrested, some of the latter
being shamefully mistreated. T h e Vicar General is also a prisoner in the
hands of the insurgents, and the arrest of the Archbishop is confirmed.
T h e convents are being searched, the visits being m a d e during the night.
It is asserted that 20 Jesuits have b e e n shot." 4 6 Much of this statement was
untrue, including the deaths of twenty Jesuits. What mattered, however,
was n o t its accuracy b u t that it was believed to be true.
For their part, the pro-Commune press and the sensationalist Times pe-
riodically treated their readers to reports of newly discovered atrocities
committed by the Catholic church. T h e most famous involved the n u n s of
the r u e Picpus in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. T h e National Guard dis-
covered three madwomen housed in small huts in the convent garden and
a variety of objects (a mattress with straps and buckles, iron corsets, an iron
skullcap, and a rack t u r n e d by a cog-wheel) which led immediately to ac-
cusations of imprisonment and torture. (The n u n s claimed they were old
orthopedic instruments.) To add a note of sexual scandal to the story, the
national guardsmen pointed out a subterranean connecting d o o r between
the n u n n e r y and the adjacent monastery. 4 7
As the war worsened, disagreements a m o n g the elected members of the

C o m m u n e intensified and decisions were m a d e that once again fed fears
of a reign of terror. At the end of April m e n who looked to the past and
wanted a strong executive prevailed over those who identified m o r e gener-
ically and less historically as socialists, and they established a five-man ex-
ecutive committee to lead the revolution. They then m a d e the symbolical-
ly disastrous decision to call this new executive committee the Committee
of Public Safety, after the war cabinet created during the French Revolu-
tion. In addition to defending the revolution against its European oppo-
nents, the Committee of Public Safety had been responsible for the polit-
ical purges of 1793 and 1794. T h e painter Gustave Courbet, an elected
m e m b e r of the C o m m u n e , understood the emotional response such a
name would provoke and warned his fellow C o m m u n a r d s that they would
be "re-establishing to our own detriment a Terror that is not of our time.
Let us employ," he pleaded, "the words suggested by our own revolu-
tion." 4 8
As Courbet had warned, the n a m e created alarm a m o n g both republi-
cans and conservatives. Bourgeois warnings of a n o t h e r Terror gained cre-
dence, even though some supporters of the C o m m u n e attempted to head
them off. Jacques Durand, for instance, impressed G o n c o u r t at the May 7
meeting in Saint-Eustache when he insisted the C o m m u n e had had "no
idea, n o intention, of a Terror," when it set u p a Committee of Public
Safety. 49
In April references to revolutionary women also took on a new aspect.
No longer identified as the victims of terror, like the n u n who "escaped" to
Brussels, they began to be seen as the instigators and the enjoyers of ter-
ror. Catulle Mendes, foreshadowing the emotions m e n would experience
at the end of the C o m m u n e when they watched the petroleuses being
marched to Versailles, was both attracted to and repulsed by the cantinieres
who took u p arms. "In their horribleness, they have a kind of savage
grandeur," h e wrote. And they r e m i n d e d him of the past. "We have our can-
tinieres, as '93 its tricoteuses." 5 0
The appellation tricoteuse (knitter) referred to the women of the Parisian
sans-culottes who, unlike wealthier women, who were expected to remain
at home, participated freely in the popular events of the revolution and
knitted while they listened to the debates of the revolutionary assemblies.
Largely a creation of the nineteenth century and used exclusively by the
opponents of the Revolution, the term replaced the phrase furies de guillo-
tine and elided all the female supporters of the revolution with those who
supported the terror, simultaneously reflecting and creating a fear of
women and a fear of revolution. 5 1
Like the Goncourts' maid Rose, whose outward appearance and de-
m e a n o r had concealed h e r sexual activity, the tricoteuses concealed their
lust for violence in the feminine activity of knitting. But unlike Rose, whose
secret life seemed to symbolize the duplicity of women to the G o n c o u r t
brothers, the tricoteuses symbolized the "degeneration of the h u m a n race"
and its "excesses of depravity and horror" to bourgeois m e n . 3 2 E. Lairtul-
lier created a stirring verbal portrait in 1840:
T h e s e w o m e n , devoted body a n d soul to t h e i n s t r u m e n t of corporal punish-

m e n t , d o u b l e t h e atrocity by their d e m o n i a c a l vociferations. [They] fling sin-
ister sarcasm at t h e b l o o d a b o u t to be shed, a n d sardonic l a u g h t e r at t h e lives
a b o u t to e n d . [They] crowd a r o u n d t h e fatal plank so as to savor all t h e bet-
ter t h e livid pallor, t h e mysterious trembling, a n d t h e anguish of t h e victim.
[They] rejoice in t h e cowardly executioner, whose place they would have tak-
en with delight. [They] stamp their f e e t with joy at t h e m o m e n t of the bloody
holocaust; p a n t impatiently after t h e victim who, in their f r i g h t f u l lingo, is go-
ing to jump like a carp or sneeze, in the sack; a n d d a n c e h i d e o u s revolutionary
dances in celebration at the very f o o t of t h e scaffold. 5 3
Identification of the c o m m u n a r d e s with the tricoteuses gave interpreta-

tions of the C o m m u n e an ominous tone. Mendes wrote in his j o u r n a l that
the women of the people were "drunk with hate." 5 4 O n May 5 the New York
Herald published letters f r o m its correspondents which juxtaposed "ladies"
who watched the shells fall near the Arc de T r i o m p h e and vivandieres who
fought like m e n . (Vivandieres and cantinieres both f u r n i s h e d provisions to
military and National Guard troops. In this context, however, vivandiere
also connotes a woman who violated gender n o r m s by joining in the fight-
ing.) O n e of the Herald's correspondents reported that "these Parisiennes
have 'supped so full of horrors' lately that their mental digestion must be
much impaired. T h e women are very fierce, some of them; they are per-
haps reviving the race that watched the guillotine and counted the heads
that fell like a u t u m n leaves." 55
T h e association of the Terror, the guillotine, and women was strong in
the nineteenth century and was n o t offset by the participation of women
in the public b u r n i n g of a guillotine at the statue of Voltaire at the outset
of the C o m m u n e . 5 6 Any angry or agitated woman could conjure u p images
of guillotines in use. O n May 5, for instance, G o n c o u r t recorded his im-
pressions of a g r o u p of Communards. O n e animallike woman caught his
attention when she came to the front of the group. "Her paws in the air
making wild gestures," she d e n o u n c e d the m e n in the g r o u p as "cowards!
men who look on while others fight," and professed her desire for combat.
Remembering and Representing 7i
"I'd just like to get my hands on a reactionary, on a royalist, I'd claw his
face for him!" she declared. T h e n , G o n c o u r t reported, "she probes the
crowd with an eye avid for the guillotine, then draws away, staggering in a
sort of d r u n k e n anger." In contrast to the images of wild beasts and the
guillotine evoked by the woman's words and demeanor, the m e n ' s expres-
sion of class sentiments—they wanted "no m o r e rich people"—provoked
only condescension and exasperation f r o m Goncourt. T h e m e n were fool-
ish and despicable; the women were dangerous. 5 7
Goncourt's c o m m u n a r d e , like Mendes's cantinieres, bears a strong re-
semblance to Charles Dickens's character Madame Defarge in A Tale of Two
Cities, first published in 1859. T h e fictional Madame Defarge, who ruth-
lessly d e n o u n c e d "traitors" to the Revolution and knitted at the foot of the
guillotine as their heads rolled, was, indeed, memorable,
of a strong a n d fearless character, of shrewd sense a n d readiness, of great de-

t e r m i n a t i o n , o f t h a t kind of beauty which n o t only seems to i m p a r t to its pos-
sessor firmness a n d animosity, b u t seems to strike into o t h e r s an instinctive
recognition of those qualities; t h e t r o u b l e d time would have heaved h e r up,
u n d e r any circumstances. But, i m b u e d f r o m h e r c h i l d h o o d with a b r o o d i n g
sense of wrong, a n d an inveterate hatred of a class, o p p o r t u n i t y h a d d e v e l o p e d
h e r into a tigress. She was absolutely without pity. If she h a d ever h a d t h e virtue
in her, it h a d quite g o n e o u t of her.
It was n o t h i n g to h e r that an i n n o c e n t m a n was to die f o r t h e sins of
his forefathers; she saw, n o t him, b u t t h e m . It was n o t h i n g to her, that his wife
was to be m a d e a widow and his d a u g h t e r an o r p h a n ; that was insufficient p u n -
ishment, because they were her natural enemies and her prey, and as such h a d n o
right to live. To appeal to her, was m a d e hopeless by h e r having no sense of pity.™
The tricoteuse embodied in Madame Defarge had become the image of

the female revolutionary by 1871. This new French revolution b r o u g h t
her back to life. She appears n o t only in Goncourt's vision of the commu-
narde on May 5 but t h r o u g h o u t the memoirs, reports, editorials, and his-
tories that have been written about the C o m m u n e . T h e sight of women
knitting was e n o u g h to arrest the attention of virtually any bourgeois. E. B.
Washburne reported in his memoirs that "the great feature which attract-
ed my attention was the large n u m b e r of women who were present with
their knitting-work,— 'tricoteuses' they were called," when h e visited a polit-
ical gathering at Saint-Eustache. H e n e e d e d to say n o more for bourgeois
readers. Even though h e r e p o r t e d that the knitters appeared "motherly,
plain and serious women, and very well behaved," the seed of doubt about
their character had been planted 5 9
lOO
The same is true of American journalist J o h n Russell Young's reflections

on the C o m m u n e . Writing at the end of the semaine sanglante, he, too, re-
called a visit to a club, where h e saw "a n u m b e r of women, some of whom
were knitting, recalling the Tricoteurs [sic] who were wont in the other
days to sit all day near the guillotine." 6 0 In case the allusion to the trico-
teuses left any doubts about his views of the C o m m u n e , h e then n o t e d that
although h e heard only peaceful speeches, he was certain that if h e "had
remained long enough, I might have h e a r d an address or two u p o n the di-
vision of property and the duty of general pillage." 61 For bourgeois ob-
servers, the C o m m u n e was like the knitting woman. Both appeared be-
nign, b u t they knew the appearances were false.
Images of unnatural, violent, and bloodthirsty women became even
more p r o m i n e n t at the end of the C o m m u n e when women d e f e n d e d the
barricades and were accused of being incendiaries. Equations of the
petroleuses with the tricoteuses of the first Revolution a b o u n d e d . A m o n g
the most misogynist of them came f r o m English writers. In 1873 the anony-
mous author of the text in the English edition of Charles Bertall's draw-
ings of the Communards, for instance, a b a n d o n e d the image of the tigress,
a noble beast in Western imagination, and likened the women of the Com-
m u n e to "the thirsty Hyaena" that has "tasted Blood." 6 2 Denis Arthur Bing-
ham, who wrote for a variety of British newspapers in the 1870s, was still
so agitated about the petroleuses when his memoirs were published in
1896 that he likened them to "the lecheuses [female g o u r m a n d s — f r o m the
verb lecher, to lick] of the First Revolution [who were] intoxicated with the
f u m e s of wine and blood." Completing the connection, he concluded that
they deserved the guillotine as a p u n i s h m e n t . 6 3 This spine-tingling image
of women swooning at the smell of blood and Bingham's explanation that
the lecheuses "used to lick the blood as it trickled down the guillotine" 6 4 are
unparalleled, b u t similar sentiments lived on for a long time. Almost a cen-
tury after the C o m m u n e , Alistair H o m e could still present the women of
March 18 as "figures horribly reminiscent of the tricoteuses of the Terror,
. . . [who] howled for the blood of the captive." 65
O n the other side of the political divide, C o m m u n a r d s and their sup-
porters also identified angry, vengeful women with the Terror, the guillo-
tine, and blood. T h e pro-Commune journalist Lissagaray called the
women of Versailles who attacked the C o m m u n a r d prisoners in the streets
of Versailles hyenas and jackals, and h e was appalled to hear t h e m scream
for the prisoners to be taken "to the guillotine!" 6 6 What the bourgeoises
of Versailles did and said is n o t entirely clear, although their words and ac-
tions were widely reported and discussed. O t h e r journalists and witnesses
heard the women insult the prisoners and call for their deaths, but only
Lissagaray "heard" them call for the guillotine. 6 7 Like the Versaillais, he
saw the C o m m u n e through the lens of the French Revolution and con-
veyed his j u d g m e n t of women's behavior through his association of them
with the guillotine and, by implication, the Terror.
Like Lissagaray, Louise Michel t u r n e d the bloodthirsty imagery that was
so often used against the C o m m u n a r d s against the women of Versailles, al-
though she made n o explicit allusions to the past. Writing about the attacks
on the dead and the prisoners who were taken to Versailles in April, she
did n o t mince words. "These creatures, hideous with ferocity, dressed in
luxury and coming from who knows w h e r e , . . . insulted the prisoners and
dug out the eyes of the dead with the ends of their umbrellas. . . . Thirsting
for blood, like ghouls, they were . . . monstrous and irresponsible like she-
wolves [louves]." 68
Although imagery f r o m the French Revolution was available to both
sides in this conflict, it never worked as well for the C o m m u n a r d s as it did
for the bourgeoisie, since the historical reference point was to revolution-
aries, not counterrevolutionaries. T h e image of the tricoteuse, in fact, was
used only by the C o m m u n e ' s opponents, as it had b e e n used earlier in the
century by the opponents of the French Revolution. But references to and
representations of the present in terms of the past, and in female f o r m , al-
lowed both sides to tell themselves and the world that their o p p o n e n t s were
unnatural, i n h u m a n , immoral, and without pity. These images f r o m the
Revolution of 1789 were only the beginning of the process of representa-
tion that would take place during and after the C o m m u n e , however. Many
more female figures were about to be born.
C H A P T E R T H R E E
The Symbolic Female Figure
C
omposite or stereotyped female figures are liberally sprinkled
t h r o u g h the newspapers, histories, a n d m e m o i r s of the C o m m u n e .
A m o n g the most prominently displayed are widows a n d m o t h e r s
w h o m o u r n e d the dead; cantinieres a n d ambulancieres (female cooks a n d
nurses), w h o b r o u g h t food, drink, a n d medical assistance to the National
Guard; "amazons" who volunteered to fight against the Versaillais; female
orators (also amazons) w h o a p p e a r e d nighdy at political clubs; and, dur-
ing the final week of fighting, petroleuses w h o were accused of setting the
fires that b u r n e d the city. Each figure reflects late nineteenth-century no-
tions of a p p r o p r i a t e a n d i n a p p r o p r i a t e , natural a n d u n n a t u r a l , acceptable
and u n a c c e p t a b l e female behavior, a n d each tells us a b o u t h e r creators'
perceptions of the differences between w o m e n a n d m e n . T h e s e figures d o
m o r e t h a n reflect cultural assumptions a b o u t w o m a n ' s n a t u r e a n d appro-
priate behavior, however. They also assign m e a n i n g to w o m e n ' s actions,
a n d e m b o d y j u d g m e n t s of t h e m a n d of the C o m m u n e .
T h e m e a n i n g of these representations of c o m m u n a r d e s (the t e r m is it-
self a representation, f o r it identifies w o m e n in t e r m s of their political ac-
tivities a n d beliefs) were n o t stable even in 1871. Each figure h a d m o r e
t h a n o n e persona, a n d as h e r personas c h a n g e d , so did the j u d g m e n t s be-
h i n d the presentation of her. T h e cantiniere a p p e a r e d alternately as silly,
saintly, a n d devious. T h e female warrior a n d female orator were heroic,
dangerous, foolish, a n d irrational, d e p e n d i n g u p o n their creators' politi-
cal positions. T h e grieving widow was usually an i n n o c e n t victim, b u t in the
h a n d s of caricaturists even she could b e c o m e a duplicitous figure. T h e
74
77
petroleuse was m o r e often evil than good, but she, too, had various repre-
sentations, ranging from the alluring to the hideous and f r o m victim to vil-
lain. This chapter explores the female victims and villains that appeared
before the Versailles invasion of Paris in late May, and the ideological roles
they played in the texts of the C o m m u n e . T h e petroleuses of the semaine
sanglante will appear in Chapter 5.
F e m a l e Victims
Men were the major defenders of the city and bore the b r u n t of the ca-
sualties once the war between Paris and Versailles began in early April. By
May 21, four thousand Parisian m e n as well as a goodly n u m b e r of women
and children had been killed, and thirty-five h u n d r e d m e n had been tak-
en prisoner. 1 Many other m e n had j o i n e d the ranks of the blesses (wound-
ed) who could be seen a r o u n d the city and in the hospitals. Blessees (injured
women) also existed, but the term was never used. Wounded women either
were not part of the public scene or, for some reason, were unmentionable.
O t h e r female and child victims of the war appear regularly in the Com-
m u n e ' s texts, however, and their symbolic significance extended well be-
yond their actual numbers.
Even though w o u n d e d m e n appeared in public and were buried daily in
the cemeteries of Paris, culturally it was easier to portray women as victims.
Generally speaking, war was supposed to be a situation in which m e n
demonstrated their m a n h o o d . 2 To die in combat might be tragic, but it was
to be expected in wartime, and neither side wanted to view its fallen m e n
as victims. Instead, political leaders and journalists referred to t h e m as
martyrs, 3 placing them in a related but m o r e heroic cultural category. In
contrast, women and children were n o t combatants (at least in theory), and
their deaths were n o t considered a normal consequence of war. Indeed,
m e n fought, at least in part, to protect them. T h e military c o m m a n d e r s of
the C o m m u n e understood this impulse and used it when they n e e d e d to
rally their troops. 4 W h e n women and children were injured or killed or
when they lost their male protectors, they could be used to symbolize the
horrors of war and the villainy of the enemy.
T h e cultural availability of women and children to represent the horrors
of war was not new in 1871, but o n e of its most m e m o r a b l e uses appeared
in that year when H o n o r e Daumier, the foremost caricaturist in France, re-
acted to the carnage of the Franco-Prussian War. H e m a d e powerful use of
female allegory in his drawing Appalled by the Heritage (fig. 5). A grieving
figure representing France dominates the drawing. She stands in the fore-
lOO
F I G U R E 5. H o n o r e Daumier, Appalled by the Heritage. T h e Metropolitan M u s e u m of

Art, Bequest of Edwin T. Bechtel, 1957. (57.650.108.) All rights reserved. T h e
Metropolitan M u s e u m of Art.
The Symbolic Female Figure 77
ground, t u r n e d to the side, shrouded in black f r o m head to foot, with her

face buried in her hands. She is the symbolic opposite of Delacroix's Lib-
erty. Instead of leading the French into glorious battle, she m o u r n s the
dead m e n whose bodies stretch o u t to the horizon. She is contained with-
in the picture's frame, but they are not, and neither, Daumier seems to sug-
gest, is her despair. It, like the dead, is unmeasurable, reaching to the hori-
zon and beyond. 5
T h e assignment of killing to m e n and grieving to women was part of a
long-standing Western conceptualization of sex roles and traits, although
the understanding of gender differences evolved over time. In general,
men were seen as strong, women as weak; m e n as independent, women as
dependent; m e n as protectors, women as the protected. Mothers might
protect their children in peacetime (or might at least try to protect them),
but only m e n could protect t h e m in times of war. 6
T h e power of these dichotomies to structure the representation and
meaning of events was demonstrated at the outset of the revolution when
women and children confronted General Lecomte's troops o n the slopes
of Montmartre. As the story was told and retold, u n a r m e d women faced
down a r m e d men. Whether the women were literally u n a r m e d or n o t is
unclear (Louise Michel, who was part of the crowd, claimed that she was
carrying a gun u n d e r her cloak), 7 but the m e a n i n g of the event d e p e n d e d
u p o n the representation of t h e m as u n a r m e d , that is, powerless. They were
the weak and the innocent who could inflict n o physical h a r m o n the m e n
they confronted. In the eyes of the people, Lecomte's crime, for which he
would pay with his life, was ordering his troops to fire on these innocents.
The symbolic, if not the literal, truth of the scene on Montmartre lay in
this clash between the powerful and the weak. For C o m m u n a r d support-
ers, it was the (acceptable) explanation for Lecomte's execution, even
though the soldiers who were held prisoner with him and who escaped ex-
ecution saw the women of Montmartre as anything b u t powerless. 8
T h e W o m e n of Neuilly
T h e terrible irony of an urban war f o u g h t to protect women and chil-
dren is that the fighting endangers the very people who are being de-
fended. This irony was b r o u g h t h o m e bitterly to the village of Neuilly, a
bourgeois faubourg, when, o n April 2, Versailles aimed its guns toward
Paris and o p e n e d fire. Most of the shells landed in Neuilly. T h e heinous-
ness of Versailles's crime was symbolized by the news that a group of school-
girls had b e e n "litteralement hachee" (literally cut up) by machine-gun fire
lOO
as they came out of a church, a story that was carried in every C o m m u n a r d

newspaper. 9 This shelling on the second was just the beginning of the at-
tack on the western side of the city. T h e b o m b a r d m e n t continued night
and day for the next two months. Some m a n a g e d to escape f r o m Neuilly,
others were trapped for weeks. 1 0
T h e victimization of women and children by war became a popular sto-
ry in the American press. O n May 5 the New York Herald published a chat-
ty, first-person account of the shelling of Neuilly u n d e r the headline,
"Dreadful Suffering of Women and Children." T h e story recounted a cor-
respondent's "stroll" through Neuilly while bullets flew about "in every di-
rection." Stopping for a m o m e n t in a doorway, he reported,
I h e a r d a s o u n d as of sobbing apparently b e n e a t h m e a n d I m a d e bold to en-

ter, a t h i n g n o t h a r d to do, a l t h o u g h t h e d o o r was supposed to be shut a n d
fastened. T h e r o o m o n the g r o u n d floor was in the greatest disorder and t h e
f u r n i t u r e which evidently b e l o n g e d to a family in h u m b l e circumstances, was
in the wildest confusion. Bits of clay a n d m o r t a r were scattered over t h e floor,
a n d o n e c o r n e r of t h e h o u s e was almost k n o c k e d out. Finding my way to t h e
cellar, I p e e r e d down, a n d t h e r e I saw a w o m e n trying to pacify two crying
children, a n d crying herself m o r e t h a n they. T h e shell in question h a d c o m e
crashing in t h e day before, a n d they h a d n o t left t h e cellar f o r a m o m e n t
since, having passed t h e n i g h t in it, a n d were still afraid to go o u t to get any-
thing to eat or to seek an asylum elsewhere. I consoled t h e m with t h e assur-
a n c e that shells were like l i g h t n i n g — t h a t they never strike twice in t h e same
place, a n d that they were t h e r e f o r e perfectly safe. It was r a t h e r cold c o m f o r t ,
however, t h e m o r e so as it was n o t by any m e a n s safe to go o u t in t h e street,
a n d they would be obliged to stay within d o o r s f o r t h e p r e s e n t at least or r u n
the risk of b e i n g overtaken by a bullet in case they went o u t to p r o c u r e any-
t h i n g to eat, even if they h a d m o n e y to get anything with, which s e e m e d m o r e
t h a n d o u b t f u l . H e r h u s b a n d , she said, was away in the s o u t h of France, at
work, b u t she h a d n o t h e a r d f r o m h i m f o r weeks. 1 1
T h e story uses a variety of gender conventions to convey the honor-

ableness of the woman and h e n c e the h o r r o r of war. T h e h o u s e / h o m e ,
which should be orderly, has b e e n violated and is in disarray; the m o t h e r
and h e r two children are frightened, crying, impoverished, and incapable
of rescuing themselves; and the natural protector of the family is absent
(increasing their helplessness), but for an h o n o r a b l e reason, working in
the south of France. This family was n o t unique, however, as the writer
pointed out. "When you think that there are h u n d r e d s in the villages of
Neuilly, Courbevois and Asnieres in just the same situation," h e conclud-
The Symbolic Female Figure 7 7
ed, "you may f o r m some idea of the misery which this fratricidal war is en-
tailing u p o n the inhabitants of the villages where it is raging." 1 2
What the story did not say was that the conditions in Neuilly were the
fault of Versailles. T h e New York Hem Id WAS not a pro-Commune newspaper.
It regularly referred to the C o m m u n a r d s as communists, and the day be-
fore it had carried a report f r o m a Times special dispatch claiming that "the
insurgents at Neuilly [not the Versailles troops] are themselves throwing
petroleum shells into Paris, to keep u p the indignation of the populace
against the Versailles Government." 1 3 T h e villain was war, and the helpless
woman and child were the irresistible symbol of its horrors.
O n April 25 both sides agreed to a one-day cease-fire, so the remaining
residents of Neuilly could be evacuated. W h e n the shelling stopped, am-
bulances (mobile field hospitals or aid stations), guardsmen, and journal-
ists rushed into the faubourg. Spectators gathered n e a r the bridge to watch
the evacuation as they had watched bombs fall in the preceding weeks.
Among those present was the English journalist Ernest Vizetelly who re-
called the scene in picturesque detail—the crowd that gathered to watch,
the "great branches of trees" lying on the ground, the broken streetlamps
and ruined houses, the dead bodies "over which flies were constantly hov-
ering and buzzing," and the "woeful procession of the victims" with their
goods and chattels. 1 4
Everyone reported on the female evacuees, b u t the displacement of
able-bodied women alone could n o t adequately convey the pathos of the
situation and the evils of war. Vizetelly and others created catalogs of even
more helpless victims, including "unhappy, dazed-looking septuagenarian
sisters," "crippled girls," "sick children," "paralyzed old men," and children
"no more than six years old." 1 5 Varied as the m e m b e r s of the category
might be, they all occupied the same symbolic position. In relation to the
male combatants, they were like the women of Montmartre on March 18:
they were powerless.
T h e C a r t r i d g e Workers
A m o r e ambiguous g r o u p of female victims was created in the waning
days of the C o m m u n e when the cartridge factory near the Champs-Elysees
exploded. Around the city, as many as three thousand women were em-
ployed in the manufacture of g u n cartridges. Little was recorded about
them, but they did n o t escape the notice and censure of the English jour-
nalist D. A. Bingham, who recorded in his memoirs that the women who
worked in a cartridge manufactory near the Palais Royal "belonged to that
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class of women called 'bad,' and their faces were covered with a thick lay-
er of flour." H e n o t e d that "there were a n u m b e r of similar establishments
scattered about Paris, and close to the church of St. Augustin was a mar-
ket-place in which some h u n d r e d s of well-floured unfortunates were to be
seen at work." 1 6 Bingham does n o t explain why h e assumed that the mu-
nitions workers were prostitutes. Perhaps h e accepted the bourgeois dis-
approval of paid work for women and, therefore, assumed that only women
who were willing to accept pay for other (immoral) purposes would take
such jobs. O r perhaps he simply wanted to titillate his readers.
In stark contrast to Bingham's unsavory verbal portrait, a drawing in the
collection of the Bibliotheque Nationale depicts the cartridge makers as
well-dressed, pretty young women who seem to be m o r e bourgeois than
working class. Both portraits contain large doses of fiction. Munitions
workers, like the women who sewed uniforms for national guardsmen and
sandbags for stopping u p the chinks in the barricades, were ordinary work-
ing-class women who had worked before the revolution and who would
work after it because they and their families n e e d e d the money they
earned. They were as unlikely to be bourgeoises as they were to be prosti-
tutes.
W h e n the cartridge factory on the avenue Rapp exploded on May 17 at
5:45 P.M., panic swept the city and r u m o r s flew. Some thought the Issy
fortress had blown up; others, Montrouge. People t h o u g h t the Versaillais
had launched a massive attack or that the Ecole Militaire, or the artillery
museum, or the tobacco factory, or a barricade had blown up. Some raced
for their homes; others streamed toward the explosion. 1 7
Those who arrived quickly were stunned by what they saw. For a consid-
erable radius houses were d a m a g e d beyond habitation, and the factory it-
self was razed to the g r o u n d . 1 8 T h e New York Times correspondent who ar-
rived on the scene early e n o u g h to help with "placing stretchers for the
heads and limbs and mutilated trunks of the killed," r e p o r t e d that "homes
were burning, and there was an incessant rattle of exploding cartridges. A
brilliant blaze shot up. . . . H u n d r e d s of thousands of cartridges, cracking
and rattling o n e after another, mingled with the shrieks of the wounded,
frightened the people terribly. . . . Mutilated forms of humanity were on
every side, groaning and writhing in agony." 19 T h e correspondent f r o m
the Times of London, who arrived a bit later, r e p o r t e d that h e saw "half a
body taken down from the roof of o n e of the tallest houses in the neigh-
bourhood." Gibson, too, said that bodies were "thrown . . . to the roofs of
neighbouring houses" and a d d e d that "fragments of bodies and mangled
limbs were to b e seen in all directions." 2 0 Edwin Child, a young English-
m a n in Paris, focused o n the physical destruction, writing to his family that
he "could hardly believe [his] ears and eyes. Roofs torn off, n o t a window
to be seen, sunblinds hanging by a broken hinge, fronts of shops smashed
in and 4 houses of 5 stories thrown to the ground. T h e cafes even had the
glasses and decanters splintered to pieces by the shock." 2 1 E d m o n d de
Goncourt described walking o n powdered glass when he went to view the
disaster the next day. 22
T h e n u m b e r of women employed in the Rapp factory is unclear, as is the
n u m b e r killed. T h e Times's first dispatch reported that "six h u n d r e d em-
ployes, chiefly women, are said to have been killed." 2 3 This estimate, though
it may reflect the actual n u m b e r of women who worked in the factory, was
much too high, for the employees had b e e n sent h o m e two hours early that
day, at five o'clock. O n May 18, the Journal Officiel reported that a h u n d r e d
persons had been killed. 2 4 Lissagaray, writing later in the decade, estimat-
ed the n u m b e r of deaths at "more than forty." 25
In addition to workers who were still in the factory, the explosion killed
passersby and national guardsmen o n duty outside. 2 6 T h e Times corre-
spondent saw a woman searching for her husband, who had been seen near
the building earlier, and a mother, "carrying about a little child's straw hat,
with pretty pink rosettes," asking people if they had "seen a child in a sim-
ilar hat." People, he said, treated her kindly and told her that "the only chil-
dren they had seen about wore n o such hat." 2 7
Women figured prominently in the early reports not because most of the
cartridge workers were women, a fact that was missing f r o m many reports,
but to emphasize the h o r r o r of the scene. T h e New York Times correspon-
dent played u p the melodrama: "To o n e body clung the scorched frag-
ments of a hoop-skirt, and on the remaining finger of o n e h a n d was the
wedding ring." O t h e r newspapers repeated the story verbatim. 2 8 Others
focused on frightened and distraught relatives, sometimes critically. Lewis
Wingfield, assistant surgeon to the American Ambulance during the Pruss-
ian siege, reported, n o t unsympathetically, that "poor women were crying
and searching for the remains of their daughters." 2 9 T h e New York Times
correspondent, by contrast, faulted "aged women, wringing their hands in
despair at the uncertainty of the situation of kindred," for increasing "the
terror which everywhere prevailed." 3 0 T h e New York Tribune r e p o r t e d that,
"women and children rushed frantically hither and thither, n o t knowing
what they did or whither they went, for some of t h e m would have actually
dashed into the flaming ruins had they n o t b e e n prevented by the fire-
men," and then underscored the irrationality of women with a detail miss-
ing f r o m other reports: "One woman, m a d with terror, flung herself from
a third-story window, and was dashed to pieces on the pavements." 3 1
W h o or what was responsible for the explosion was widely debated. T h e
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discovery that the workers had been sent h o m e early rapidly convinced
many Parisians that agents of Versailles had conspired to blow u p the fac-
tory. T h e Committee of Public Safety issued a statement blaming Versailles
"agents" for the deaths. 3 2 T h e police arrested four m e n for sabotage and
treason. Their guilt or innocence, as well as their fate, is unknown, b u t Lis-
sagaray, a m o n g others, r e m a i n e d convinced in 1876 "that a serious inquest
would probably have revealed a crime." 3 3 British observers and journalists,
however, believed that the explosion was "a p u r e accident," 3 4 although
Vizetelly, in a classic instance of blaming the victim, attributed the "acci-
dent" to "the carelessness of o n e or a n o t h e r of the scores of women who
were employed in the works." 3 5
T h e presentation of the innocent victim (in h o o p skirt and wedding
ring), the worried m o t h e r (with h e r child's bonnet), and the m a d old
woman (spreading panic in h e r wake) in the early accounts demonstrates
the ease with which female stereotypes replaced the complex women of
the C o m m u n e in contemporary texts. How m u c h political advantage
might have b e e n won f r o m the mangled bodies, grieving survivors, and
conspiracy theories if the C o m m u n e had lasted longer is impossible to tell.
Four days later, the Versailles troops invaded the city, and the cause of the
explosion and pity for its female victims were overshadowed by the far
greater bloodshed of the semaine sanglante.
Grieving Widows a n d M o t h e r s
Akin to the literal victims of the fighting b u t even m o r e important sym-

bolically, since they posed n o challenges to gender norms, were the wid-
ows and mothers of d e a d guardsmen. W h e t h e r they were overwhelmed by
grief or able to act nobly, their public presence, both in the city and in sym-
pathetic texts, served as a r e m i n d e r of the d e a d (and thus absent) young
m e n for whom they m o u r n e d . During the C o m m u n e , these noble, griev-
ing figures were used to spur the city to renewed efforts; after its defeat,
they symbolized the nobility of the cause and the crimes of Versailles.
Early memoirs, diaries, and newspaper accounts repeatedly m e n t i o n e d
the women who waited anxiously by the city gates after every battle and the
"heart-rending scenes" when "near relations and friends" were recognized
a m o n g the d e a d and wounded. 3 6 These scenes began with the fighting o n
April 3 and 4. T h e newspaper and m e m o i r accounts of the day described
the crowds of women clustered together, waiting for the r e t u r n of their
husbands and apprehensively searching the wagons of d e a d and w o u n d e d
soldiers as they entered the city. Indeed, the distress of these women was
so great that some of the foreign correspondents in the city (writing out of
their own political hopes) believed that they would now turn against the
Commune.37
O n the sixth, the city held the first of what became daily funerals for fall-
en guardsmen. T h r e e e n o r m o u s horse-drawn hearses, flying the Com-
m u n e ' s red flags, moved slowly through the streets, followed by the elect-
ed leaders of the C o m m u n e , their heads bared, red sashes over their
shoulders. Next came the families of the d e a d men, national guardsmen
with their guns reversed, and an immense silent crowd that had j o i n e d the
procession. Muffled d r u m s beat the pace for the marching throng. Thou-
sands watched from windows and sidewalks. At Pere-Lachaise Cemetery,
Charles Delescluze, the hero of the Revolution of 1848 and a m e m b e r of
the C o m m u n a l Council, himself a dying man, moved forward to speak.
"These [deaths] have already cost us too dearly," he said in a speech rem-
iniscent of Lincoln's Gettysburg address in its somberness and inspiration.
But "this grande ville. . . holds the f u t u r e of humanity in its hands. . . . Cry
not for our brothers who have fallen heroically, but swear to continue their
work, and to save Liberty, the C o m m u n e , and the Republic!" 3 8
T h e newspaper and early m e m o i r accounts of the funeral n o t e d the
presence of the grieving women without emphasis. But as time passed, pro-
C o m m u n e writers gave the women m o r e prominence, as they attempted
to counterbalance the Versailles portraits of the c o m m u n a r d s as unfeeling
assassins and of the c o m m u n a r d e s as unnatural, fire-setting furies. Lanjal-
ley and Corriez, writing in the immediate aftermath of the C o m m u n e , em-
phasized the grief of the women—"the relatives of the dead, their crying
wives and mothers"—who followed the hearses behind the members of the
C o m m u n e . 3 9 Lissagaray's account of the procession begins with a scene of
weeping women, "bending over the bodies" and uttering "cries of fury and
vows of vengeance for the deaths of their sons and husbands, many of
whom they knew had been executed after they were captured." 4 0
Pro-Commune caricaturists, too, were drawn to the grieving m o t h e r and
widow to symbolize the horrors of war and the evils of Versailles. New pie-
tas, maternal figures holding dead soldiers in their arms, appeared, some
in drawings that are generically pacifist, others with such p r o - C o m m u n e
messages as The Triumph of the Monarchy: "Among the d e a d and the dying,
look for your sons, p o o r mothers," to represent the sins of the Versailles
government (fig. 6). The Triumph of the Monarchy d e p e n d s on the gendered
roles and iconography of the period to make its point. Thiers, holding a
phallic c a n n o n barrel, stands atop a mountain of d e a d men. Death, hold-
ing a scythe, crowns him with a laurel wreath, while vultures and bats de-
scend u p o n the scene and women grieve. Two hold m e n in the posture of
F I G U R E 6 . The Triumph of the Monarchy: "Among t h e d e a d a n d t h e dying, look f o r
your sons, p o o r mothers." Bibliotheque Nationale.
the pieta; a third clutches h e r children to her. T h e woman who buries her
face in her hands resembles several iconographic figures (see fig. 2). Like
Daumier's representation of a grieving France (see fig. 5), she is t u r n e d
away from the viewer and holds her face in her hands. Like that of
Delacroix's Liberty (see fig. 2), h e r bodice has slipped down from her
shoulders to her arms, leaving her back bare. But her dark skirt differs
from Liberty's traditional white clothing and h e r hair flows down her back,
likening h e r also to representations of Marianne (the Republic). In any
case, the message is clear: Thiers has t r i u m p h e d over the C o m m u n e , the
Republic, Paris, and Liberty at the cost of many French lives. Thiers, the
artist assumes (as did the Communards), having proven his m a n h o o d , will
reinstitute the monarchy.
In political acts as symbolic as they were practical, the C o m m u n e orga-
nized fund-raising concerts and events for the widows and children of the
dead. It adopted children who were completely o r p h a n e d by the death of
their fathers and undertook to provide for their care and education. It es-
tablished pensions of 6 0 0 francs for the widows and 365 francs per year for
each child of the m e n who died in battle. Enshrining a working-class no-
tion of marriage that did not require legal sanction, the C o m m u n e m a d e
all widows and o r p h a n s eligible for aid, regardless of the formal marital sta-
tus of the man and woman. While the claims were being verified, needy
widows and o r p h a n s could apply for an immediate fifty francs. 4 1 Seen as
sanctioning illegitimacy, the law provoked an outcry from conservatives
and provided a field day for anti-Commune caricaturists, who reversed the
image of the widow from victim to villain and quickly p r o d u c e d cartoons
of women urging their m e n to go and fight and complaining when they re-
turned alive.
Dangerous Women
Symbolically the opposite of the women who bore witness to the evils of
Versailles and the toll of war in C o m m u n a r d texts were the Parisian women
who f o u g h t for the C o m m u n e in o n e way or another, and conservative and
anti-Commune writers paid them considerable attention. T h e willingness
of theses "amazons" to participate in the taking of life violated bourgeois
conceptualizations of woman's nature and called into question a basic as-
sumption of nineteenth-century Western civilization—that aggression, bel-
licosity, and courage were masculine, n o t feminine, attributes. Particular-
ly disturbing was that m e n found, many of these woman to be physically
attractive. For conservatives, the combination of violence and beauty was
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both evil and compelling, and when they wrote about the female warriors
of Paris, though the tone varied from outright denunciation to sarcasm,
the c o n d e m n a t i o n was always clear.
In contrast, pro-Commune writers were ambivalent. Only the truly radi-
cal Parisian journalists who welcomed any challenge to the status q u o
praised them wholeheartedly. Most did n o t know quite what to d o with
these champions of the C o m m u n e whose words and deeds challenged pa-
triarchal culture. W h e n they could, they ignored the women. When they
could not, as was particularly the case when they wrote about the final week
of fighting when women d e f e n d e d the barricades, they presented them as
women of the people whose actions would save the revolution. But male
commentators were not entirely comfortable with this portrayal.
"Amazon" was the word most commonly applied to the female defend-
ers of the C o m m u n e . They were known as the amazons of the Seine, the
amazons of Paris, the amazons of the C o m m u n e , the amazons of the rab-
ble, and there was talk of f o r m i n g a battalion of amazons. 4 2 Although oth-
er terms were also used, including virago, fury, harpy, and vivandiere, the
primary reference point was the Amazons of ancient Greece, the world's
most enduring representation of the powerful woman.
More malleable, perhaps, than most images, the female warriors of
Greek mythology have appeared over time as everything f r o m free spirits
who created their own society and desired only brief encounters with men
in order to beget children to powerful, man-hating demons, willing to sac-
rifice their right breasts in the pursuit of a straight shot in archery. Liter-
ate and literary French, English, and American m e n in the nineteenth cen-
tury were well acquainted with the amazons of antiquity as their scattered
references to Q u e e n Penthesilea attest. This familiarity had many
sources—an education in the classics; the popularity of Heinrich von
Kleist's t 8 0 8 poetic d r a m a Penthesilea; and warrior-maiden representations
of the French national h e r o i n e J e a n n e d'Arc.
In the writings of Herodotus, Homer, Hippocrates, and Aristophanes,
the Amazons were a society of skilled and fierce warriors who lived without
men, rode horses, f o u g h t ferociously in battle, and eventually were de-
feated by the Athenians. Sculptors created scenes of these battles for the
P a r t h e n o n and other civic buildings, and carved statues of individual ama-
zons dressed in short tunics that left o n e breast uncovered. This artistic
convention entered into Roman portrayals of the Amazons as riding into
battle with o n e breast exposed. 4 3 T h e belief that Amazons cut or b u r n e d
off o n e of their breasts in childhood is a later tradition 4 4
In myth, the beauty and strength of the Amazons, despite their warlike
ways, exercise considerable appeal a m o n g the Greeks. T h e strength and
77
steadfastness of more than o n e young m a n is tested by sending him on a

quest to capture something f r o m the Amazons. And m o r e than o n e falls in
love with an Amazon. W h e n Heracles captures the sacred girdle of Q u e e n
Antiope (also called Hippolyta), h e gives her to Theseus, the king of
Athens, who falls in love with h e r and marries her. In a n o t h e r history, writ-
ten by the fourth-century Greek poet Quintus, Achilles falls tragically in
love with the beautiful q u e e n Penthesilea after h e has fatally wounded her
in the battle of Troy. 45
In Kleist's play Penthesilea leads her forces into battle against the Greeks
during the siege of Troy, to capture young m e n who will become their
lovers and the fathers of their children. During the battle, Penthesilea falls
in love with Achilles. Aroused by passion, she pursues him in battle only to
be c o n q u e r e d by him. Achilles, for his part, overwhelmed by her courage
and beauty, becomes emotionally enslaved to her. W h e n she discovers that
she is a prisoner, she goes m a d and tears Achilles limb f r o m limb. W h e n
she comes to her senses and discovers Achilles is dead, she kills herself. 4 6
Elements of these stories are interlaced with the legend ofJ e a n n e d'Arc.
In 1429 the seventeen-year-old J e a n n e , from a village in the duchy of Lor-
raine, inspired the young Charles, heir to the throne of France, to victory
over the English at Orleans. J e a n n e said she had b e e n inspired by the di-
vine voices she heard. Some time after the victory, Charles's enemies, the
Burgundians, captured J e a n n e and sold h e r to the English; they t u r n e d her
over to the Inquisition, and she was tried for heresy and b u r n e d at the stake
in the marketplace in Rouen.
A variety of circumstances led to the association of this young martyred
heroine with the Amazons, the other maiden warriors of legend. T h e as-
sociation begins with h e r i n d e p e n d e n c e f r o m m e n , symbolized by h e r vir-
ginity, c r o p p e d hair, male clothing, and direct communication with God.
It continues, of course, with h e r role as a warrior at the battle of Orleans,
where she inspired victory, and it concludes in the alteration of h e r name.
J e a n n e herself said that h e r family n a m e was Dare. Over time Dare was
transformed into d'Arc. T h e de awarded noble birth to the peasant girl,
and the Arc, meaning "bow," "arch," and "curve," associated h e r with the
Amazons of antiquity whose weapon was the bow. Enhancing the connec-
tion were Renaissance texts, engravings, and statues that presented J e a n n e
as an a r m e d classical warrior and sometimes explicitly c o m p a r e d h e r with
Penthesilea. 4 7
Like the m e n of ancient Greece, bourgeois journalists, essayists, and his-
torians were drawn to the fierce, beautiful female warriors of the Com-
m u n e and were convinced that they were man-hating, independent, dan-
gerous, and mad. Anti-Commune writers left J e a n n e d'Arc out of their
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jmLes SKIS, Zdiiap,,. du Heme.
LA VIE\EI FOLLE.
LES Jeanne H^G^LA CommunS

eE
. U£.
FIGURE 7. H . Nerac, "The Virgin . . . Mad: T h e J o a n of Arc of t h e C o m m u n e ,
S.G.D.G." Les signes du Zodiaque. Bibliotheque Nationale.
•
representations of the communardes, since she represented valor, good-

ness, and purity and the female warriors of the c o m m u n e represented evil,
but her legend and image hovered somewhere in the background, com-
plicating their representations and reactions.
T h e o n e place where the c o m m u n a r d e s were explicitly identified with
J e a n n e d'Arc was in a drawing by the anti-Commune caricaturist Nerac
representing Virgo or the Virgin (La Vierge) in his series on the signs of
the zodiac (fig. 7). T h e frame of the picture includes a bit of doggerel: "On
the field of battle as on the boulevard, / I can shoot a m a n at a thousand
meters without mistake."
Like most unflattering representations of the communardes, Nerac's

Caricature reveals what conservative m e n f o u n d disturbing. T h e title, "La
Vierge... Folle" (The m a d virgin), is n o t m e a n t to be read ironically, but the
allusion to J e a n n e d'Arc is. This cold-blooded, cigarette-smoking woman
with the Medusa-like curly hair and phallic shotgun is n o androgynous, vir-
ginal J e a n n e d'Arc. But neither is she a true warrior. Only m e n (and the
saintly J e a n n e ) can be warriors. In thinking she is one, and in taking on
the outward appearance of a man, the c o m m u n a r d e has violated her fe-
male nature and become mad.
Cantinieres and Ambulancieres

T h e cantinieres and ambulancieres, who provided food and drink to the
National Guard and cared for the wounded, were the least controversial of
the C o m m u n e ' s female warriors. These women were a customary part of
the nineteenth-century warfare and were easily identified. Cantinieres
wore uniforms and often carried small casks at their waists. Ambulancieres
were less likely to wear uniforms, but they carried red crosses and medical
supplies. Both groups braved the battle alongside the m e n in their battal-
ions.
Some cantinieres and ambulancieres regarded their work as a job; oth-
ers were volunteers who wanted to be near their husbands or to defend the
C o m m u n e . Like the guardsmen who were ordinary workers and had little
training in the art of warfare, these women were often ill prepared for bat-
tle. Cantinieres were simply women who knew how to cook. Ambulancieres
had little if any real training to guide them, since nursing had yet to be es-
tablished as a profession. They purchased their own supplies and did what
they could to aid w o u n d e d men. Women (not the government or physi-
cians) organized p e r m a n e n t and mobile ambulance stations in Mont-
martre and Issy, and the Union des Femmes p o u r la Defense de Paris et
les Soins aux Blesses (Union of Women for the Defense of Paris and the
Care of the Wounded) recruited ambulancieres and cantinieres to support
the battalions. 4 8
As early as March 19, cantinieres could be seen marching through the
streets with their battalions. In April and May they accompanied them into
battle. T h e C o m m u n e newspapers carried accounts of their bravery
throughout April and May. In Neui"y, a cantiniere who was "wounded in
the head b o u n d u p her wound and r e t u r n e d to the combat post." On the
Chätillon plateau, a cantiniere f o u g h t with the National Guard, "loading
her weapon, firing, and reloading without stopping." T h e cantiniere of the
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68th Battalion was "struck and killed by an artillery shell." T h e body of a

young cantiniere, "riddled with bullets," was taken to the Vaugirard mairie
for identification. 4 9 Like the references to grieving widows, reports about
the cantinieres in the C o m m u n e press better demonstrated the treachery
of Versailles than did the more n u m e r o u s deaths of men, which were to be
expected. In addition, of course, they represented the zeal and selflessness
of the C o m m u n e ' s troops.
Because they wore uniforms, the cantinieres attracted m o r e attention
than the ambulancieres. Outsiders and critics of the C o m m u n e were in-
clined to see them as objects of curiosity and ridicule. Gibson described
their attire as early as March 19: "Preceding most of the battalions" that
marched through the streets "were young women (one to each battalion)
dressed in kepi and Bloomer costumes, with a small cask suspended by a
strap flung over the shoulders." 5 0 Another Englishman provided more de-
tail: "Very trim and neat they looked in their pretty costume; a black jack-
et trimmed with red, fitting tightly to the figure, black trousers with a broad
red stripe, covered to the knees with a petticoat of the same stuff, and a
broad red band r u n n i n g r o u n d it, —all this, together with a Tyrolese hat
and feathers, and the little barrel slung across the left shoulder." 5 1
T h e cantiniere in her distinctive u n i f o r m was easily and frequently cari-
catured, her representations used to ridicule the National Guard, the Com-
mune, and of course, cantinieres themselves. Typical of these drawings is
Leonce Sherer's depiction of a cantiniere handing out liquor to already
d r u n k guardsmen (fig. 8). Juxtaposing the cantiniere's naive cheerfulness
to the slovenliness of the men, Sherer simultaneously ridicules the work-
ing-class guardsmen and the women who supported them. Paris, n o t Ver-
sailles, would have to worry about a city that was d e f e n d e d by men such as
these. Maxine Du C a m p played with the same themes of alcohol and stu-
pidity b u t singled out the ambulanciere instead of the cantiniere for at-
tention. In his portrayal, "under the pretext of 'reviving' them," she kills
the wounded by giving them eau-de-vie instead of the "simple medication
that would have healed." 5 2
Although the cantiniere was most often caricatured as a young, silly,
perky girl, other images were also used. T h e same anonymous Englishman
who described the cantiniere's costume in such detail, created a maternal
image. H e r e p o r t e d that he "struck u p a great acquaintance with the can-
tiniere of the battalion, a kind, motherly woman, who lived in the canteen
with h e r husband and children; . . . [during] the past siege [she provided]
h e r services in the double capacity of ambulanciere and cantiniere. She had
been decorated, and wore h e r scrap of red ribbon on her breast. . . . h e r
77
Defer?/ftCeter, Itfil. fah Ctg»,/,,. £4. JA» H T M » ; J A S
LES DEFENSEURS DU SECTEUR .

A l l 011s les a m i s , du c o u r a g e :
Yoici le r a y o n de soleil qui c"hasse l e e Iro'.uüarcls.
FIGURE 8. L e o n c e Scherer, "The D e f e n d e r s of t h e Sector." T h e verse reads: "Let's

go, friends, have courage, / H e r e is t h e ray of s u n s h i n e that chases away the clouds."
Souvenirs de la Commune. Bibliotheque Nationale.
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only wish was for peace and quietness, to enable h e r to gain h e r living hon-
estly. 53
Charles Bertall, for his part, created three cantinieres, f o r e g r o u n d i n g a
forbidding-looking, solid, older woman (fig. 9). Behind her, sketched in
lighter tones, are two other figures whom we are presumably supposed to
see as other cantinieres, inasmuch as the one-word title of the drawing is
in the plural. O n e of the other figures is a young, slim, stylish woman car-
rying a small basket; the other is a working-class femme agee, clothed in the
long dress and kerchief of h e r class and sex and carrying a large market
basket. Whatever Bertall's intent may have been, the harshness of the fore-
g r o u n d e d figure makes the cantiniere look ominous rather than nurtur-
ing. T h e anonymous English editor of Bertall's caricatures declared that
"there were some a m o n g [the citoyennes] perhaps . . . who had Sincerity
and Faith in the Cause they espoused. . . . Such as these however were not
Cantinieres, o n whom the Men d e p e n d e d for their hot Coffee and Brandy,
and to be useful in the thousand and o n e o d d jobs, scarcely suitable for any
not already half or wholly unsexed." H e went on to blame them for "much
of the prolongation of the Strife, and of the wilful destruction of Life and
Property in the last days." 04
Cantinieres' and ambulancieres' presentations of themselves and their
experiences differ markedly f r o m those of the caricaturists. Some, perhaps
many, women who a d o p t e d these roles were following their husbands. Alix
Milliet Payen, the daughter of a republican family and the young wife of a
national guardsman, was one. W h e n h e r husband's battalion was sent to
the Issy front in April, she purchased medical supplies, outfitted herself as
an ambulanciere, and persuaded the authorities to let h e r follow the m e n .
Like other women who accompanied the troops, she shared their danger-
ous and primitive conditions. We know something about her experiences
from letters she wrote to h e r mother. 0 5
At Issy, Payen and the m e n c a m p e d in a cemetery, without tents or blan-
kets, sheltering when they could in the damaged mausoleums. It rained
constantly. At night, she reported, the Versailles b o m b a r d m e n t continued
unabated and she could not sleep. O n e m a n was wounded in the leg and
she assisted a doctor in amputating it. She and the doctor then spent the
night in a trench, the only safe place available. She worried about h e r hus-
band, Henri, who had been w o u n d e d in the eye by his own gun when it
misfired (a c o m m o n accident). "I assure you," she told her mother, "that I
have never h e a r d the shells, balls and bullets so well; the shells f r o m the
ramparts are especially fearsome. O u r campsite is very picturesque, but the
m e n are very tired. They will be relieved tomorrow morning." 5 6
Victorine Brocher, who was also at the battle for Issy, reported that the
FIGURE 9. Bertall, "Cantinieres." Les communeux, 1871: Types, caracteres, costumes
(Paris: Gotschalk, 1871). Bibliotheque Nationale.
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ambulancieres "lacked everything," even bandages and cups for water. "We
had to make those wretched m e n drink f r o m little cartridge boxes." It was
harrowing to watch the wounded die during the night, and she reflected,
"If I were to live a h u n d r e d years, I could n o t forget that terrible slaugh-
ter." 57
Conditions varied slightly b u t rarely improved from o n e part of the front
to another. When the m e n could, they f o u n d shelter and blankets for the
cantinieres and ambulancieres, but that was not always possible. 5 8 O n April
24, Payen r e p o r t e d from the Vanves fort, "What a ruin the p o o r fort is.
T h e r e are n o t even two rooms in the barracks where water does n o t fall.
No candles, n o straw. T h e blankets are too wet to use, so the night was
scarcely better than in the trenches." Medical supplies were also in short
supply. 59
T h e work was n o t for the fainthearted. Some could n o t tolerate the suf-
fering; others, the battle. T h e first cantiniere Payen met had also volun-
teered her services so she could be near h e r husband, but the war was too
much for her, and she quickly gave u p any attempt at helping the troops
and stayed in the village. T h e captain's wife who was with the guardsmen
at their first battle at Issy left early on. Two new ambulancieres who arrived
in May were very frightened and wanted to leave. 6 0 In addition to the dan-
gerous and difficult living and working conditions and the injuries and
deaths of strangers, which Louise Michel described as the worst she had
ever seen, 6 1 women often had to cope with the injury or death of their own
husbands. When Henri Payen, wounded in mid-May, died of infection at
the end of the m o n t h , Alix was left distraught and exhausted. 6 2
Some of the women who accompanied the C o m m u n e ' s troops did n o t
survive. O n May 6 the diary of two National Guard officers at the Issy
fortress reported, "The battery at Fleury is sending us regularly six shots
every five minutes. —They have just b r o u g h t into the first-aid post a canti-
niere who has b e e n hit by a bullet in the left side of the groin. For four
days, three women have gone u n d e r the most severe fire to succor the
wounded. Now this o n e is dying and begs us to look after h e r two small chil-
dren." 6 3 Victorine Brocher was o n e of the two cantinieres who survived. 6 4
Capture by the Versailles troops could have gender-specific conse-
quences. T h e geographer Elisee Reclus, who was captured in the early
April fighting, later recorded how a cantiniere who was being m a r c h e d to
Versailles with him and other m e n was threatened. "The p o o r woman was
in the row in front of mine," he wrote, "alongside of h e r husband. She was
not at all pretty, n o r was she young: rather [she was] a poor, middle-aged
proletarian, small, marching with difficulty. Insults rained down u p o n her,
all f r o m officers prancing on horseback along the road." A young officer
volunteered, "You know what we're going to d o with her? We're going to
screw her with a red-hot iron." 6 5 i n m i d . M a y reports circulated that five
Versailles soldiers had raped and killed an ambulanciere as she tried to aid
a wounded m a n . 6 6
T h e C o m m u n a r d press, like the letters and diaries of some guardsmen
resisted the silly and sinister caricatures of the cantinieres and ambulan-
c.eres and presented them as brave, self-sacrificing heroines, but the atti-
tude of the C o m m u n e leaders and generals toward the woman who risked
their lives for the C o m m u n e was not always supportive. O n May 6, Andre
Leo, the only known female journalist of the C o m m u n e , wrote a searing
article for La Sociale about the experiences of nine ambulancieres who
risked their lives o n the front line, only to be insulted by National Guard
officers and forced to return to Paris.
Carrying a red cross to identify themselves as aid workers, the women set
out for the front on May 2. Four of them stayed with the 34th Battalion
when they reached it, and five continued on to Levallois where the fight-
ing was taking place. T h e officer in charge there declared that he knew
nothing about "the ambulances or the wounded" and told them to find
them themselves. Unable to d o so, the women continued on to the head-
quarters of General Jaroslav Dombrowski at Neuilly, where they were mis-
led by a physician, rebuffed by a superior officer, and insulted by a young
officer who, "encouraged by the curtness of his superior [officers] " m a d e
a ' j e s t m bad taste." 6 7
Finally befriended by an enlisted man, the women were taken to three
women who were already attached to these troops, including Louise
Michel who had left Issy when the attack had shifted to Neuilly. Michel
who had fought with the National Guard at Issy, was now u n a r m e d and
dressed m "feminine clothing." W h e n someone pointedly asked if the Na-
tional Guard "could not provide a g u n for the woman who, they say was
the best combattant at Issy," Louise Michel responded, "If only they would
let m e care for the wounded. You would not believe the obstacles, the jokes
the hostility!" T h e n , as if to demonstrate the truth of h e r remarks the of-
ficers placed the nine ambulancieres u n d e r guard and escorted them back
to Pans as though they were the enemy, despite the fighting and the like-
lihood that casualties would n e e d medical aid. 6 8
The heroes, villains, and victims in Leo's article are clear, as is her polit-
ical message. T h e ordinary, working-class guardsmen, who treated the
women with "respect, fraternity and sincerity," were the true revolutionar-
ies. T h e officers and physicians attached to the troops who harassed and
rebuffed the women, displayed a "bourgeois and authoritarian spirit "
more in keeping with Versailles than with the C o m m u n e . The women
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whom Leo represents as naively feeling "humiliated by the treatment they

received," were both victims and heroines. They had bravely tried to help
the guardsmen and had b e e n mistreated by officers and physicians. 69
Leo's criticism of the officer corps led to a speedy response by Louis
Rossel, the C o m m u n e ' s delegate of war, who publicly asked h e r for advice
on how best to use the assistance of women and d e n o u n c e d the May t or-
der of the Committee of Public Safety (proscribing the presence o f w o m e n
in the aid stations at the front) which h a d fueled the incident. 7 0 However
ready Rossel may have b e e n to accept the women's help, the insolence with
which they were treated suggests that the military commanders were more
than happy to comply with the Committee of Public Safety's order, despite
the n e e d for the women's services. T h e c o m m a n d e r ' s reactions to the
women who accompanied the guardsmen to the front were at odds with
the image of the ambulancieres and cantinieres to be seen in the writings
of guardsmen and journalists. Alphonse Freye, for instance, asked the Cri
du Peuple in early May for "a small corner" in which to thank the ambu-
lanciere with the 169th Battalion who had saved his life when he was
wounded in the fighting. 7 1 His portrait of the angel of mercy is directly op-
posed to the meddlesome, troublesome female who provoked the hostili-
ty of the officers.
Female Demonstrators
When o p e n warfare between Paris and Versailles began in early April,

women sought ways to support the National Guard. T h e C o m m u n e press
reported on demonstrations and marches of women eager either to par-
ticipate in the struggle or to end it. O n April 5 newspapers carried stories
about one or m o r e demonstrations of citoyennes. Groups, ranging in size
from seven h u n d r e d to twenty, reportedly gathered at the statue personi-
fying the city of Strasbourg in the place de la C o n c o r d e and m a r c h e d
a r o u n d the city with red flags. (Thiers's identification with the Franco-
Prussian peace treaty that ceded Strasbourg to Germany m a d e the statue
a popular gathering place during the C o m m u n e . ) T h e demonstrators pro-
posed to march to Versailles to present the C o m m u n e ' s case or else to j o i n
the m e n who were fighting. In o n e account the women wanted to protect
the m e n from the enemy by literally placing their bodies in front of them,
in another to help them fight. In o n e account, they carried guns; in oth-
ers, they did not. In one, they were critical of m e n who did n o t want to
fight; in another, they prepared to emulate their female ancestors who had
"saved the revolution of '89" by marching to Versailles. 72
O n e rally was a n n o u n c e d in advance in the Cri duPeuple. An anonymous

woman (une veritable citoyenne) called for women to make a final attempt at
reconciliation with Versailles before more blood was shed. Women, the an-
n o u n c e m e n t suggested, should meet at the Strasbourg statue, march to
Versailles, and explain the Parisians' goal ("to remain free") and the city's
grievances (Paris had been "slandered, betrayed, and a secret attempt
m a d e to disarm her"). 7 3
Beatrix Excoffons, a young working-class woman, reported that she went
to the a n n o u n c e d meeting at the place de la Concorde where she j o i n e d
a procession of seven h u n d r e d to eight h u n d r e d women. Some talked of
"explaining to Versailles what Paris wanted," and "others talked about how
things were a h u n d r e d years ago when the women of Paris had once be-
fore gone to Versailles to carry off the baker and the baker's wife and the
baker's little boy, as they said then." 7 4 (The reference is to the women's
march to Versailles in October 178g which resulted in the r e t u r n of Louis
XVI (the baker), Marie Antoinette (the baker's wife), and the d a u p h i n (the
baker's little boy) to Paris.)
In Belleville, a g r o u p of women whose husbands were fighting on the
Versailles side reportedly proposed to march at the h e a d of the Parisian
forces to see "if the ex-sergents de ville [their husbands] would also kill their
wives." 75 Augustine-Melvine Blanchecotte, a bourgeois woman who kept a
diary during these months, similarly r e p o r t e d that she had heard a young
woman propose to a group of national guardsmen (perhaps in Belleville)
that they should "have the wives of the sergents de ville stationed in Paris
march before them, so the army of Versailles will n o t fire."76
Despite their intentions, most of these groups never left the city. Some
were stopped by the National Guard; others may have had only a d e m o n -
stration in mind. A small g r o u p led by Beatrix Excoffons when the larger
demonstration splintered may have been the sole exception. Excoffons
suggested to h e r g r o u p that "while there were n o t e n o u g h of [them] to go
to Versailles, there were e n o u g h to go tend the injured in the C o m m u n e ' s
marching companies." They purchased medical supplies, persuaded the
National Guard to let them leave the city, crossed the Seine, and m a d e their
way to the Issy fortress, where t h e y j o i n e d the ranks of the ambulancieres. 7 7
T h e C o m m u n e newspapers r e p o r t e d briefly but sympathetically on the
women's demonstrations, presenting the marchers as women of the peo-
ple engaged in appropriate female activity on behalf of the C o m m u n e . Not
everyone agreed with this view. Foreign correspondents, bourgeois
Parisians, and even some supporters of the C o m m u n e were critical of the
women, although the content of their criticisms varied. The mildest came
from C o m m u n e supporters. Paul Lanjalley and Paul Corriez, for instance,
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writing in 1871, disingenuously declared that they were n o t going "to

ridicule the slightly theatrical enthusiasm" of the female demonstrators
who wanted to "join their husbands"—a statement reminiscent of Marc An-
thony's disingenuous declaration that h e had "come to bury Caesar, n o t to
praise him." 7 8 ^
The Times correspondent was more direct: Hjg reported that an appeal
had been m a d e to "the 'manliness' of the women." "They have b e e n told
to go and c o n q u e r Versailles, like their grandmothers in f o r m e r times," h e
wrote. "Three or four h u n d r e d presented themselves for this office, and it
is not stated whether they were mothers of families. They placed a trum-
peter at their head; but there was n o Maillard to lead them, and the 'man-
ifestation' failed miserably." 79
T h e i n n u e n d o , images, contrasts, and tone of the Times report reveal the
hostility that politically active women could evoke f r o m m e n who disagreed
with their politics and regarded them as crossing gender lines. In stark con-
trast to the Cri du Peuple, which emphasized the femininity of the d e m o n -
strators by commenting on their "very p r o p e r clothing," "serious and
grave" demeanor, "simple and natural" voices, and desire to j o i n their "hus-
bands," the Times correspondent questioned their femininity by claiming
that an appeal had b e e n m a d e to their "manliness" and asked whether they
were really "mothers of families." 80 As was often the case in references to
amazons or manly women, what the Times reporter raised with o n e h a n d —
the specter of the unnatural woman warrior—he took away with the oth-
er. Manly as these women might have been, they were incapable of success
without a real man (Maillard) to lead them. Like N e r a c ' s j e a n n e d'Arc (see
fig. 7), they were imposters, n o t real amazons.
"Real women," women who acted within the gender conventions of the
day, appear in the next paragraph of the Times article, where they stand in
explicit contrast to the manly warriors of the demonstrations. As w o u n d e d
men were b r o u g h t into the city, "women, this time really wives and moth-
ers, flew to the ramparts, besieged doors, waited, despaired." They de-
plored the war ("I said so. H e would go and fight for the Commune.") and
criticized the C o m m u n e ("And what is the Commune? I d o n ' t know, n o r
he either. What is certain, however, is that it will n o t give us back o u r sons,
o u r husbands, o u r brothers; and if they d o come back, it is n o t f r o m the
C o m m u n e that we shall get work. . . . A curse on the C o m m u n e , and all
who are in office at the Hotel de Ville!"). T h e reporter believed that these
"real (pacifist) women" were turning against the war, and their reaction
would be "irrestible." 81 Whether an a b r u p t end might have been prefer-
able to the prolonged warfare between Versailles and Paris and the bloody
final week is unclear. What is clear is that the Times correspondent's per-
77
ception of the women who supported the C o m m u n e did n o t correspond

to his conceptualization of femininity.
W o m e n Warriors
As the war with Versailles continued, the spontaneous demonstrations of

early April gave way to serious organizing. O n April 11 and 1 2 a new "Ap-
peal to the Citizenesses of Paris" appeared in Parisian newspapers. This
one, unlike that published on the fourth, called the women "to arms" and
appealed to the example of their heroic ancestors. "Citoyennes," it asked,
"where are our children, our brothers, our husbands? Do you hear the can-
nons that roar and the tocsin that sounds the sacred call? To arms! T h e
country is in danger! . . . the decisive h o u r has arrived." 8 2
This appeal went considerably farther than had the attempts to mobilize
women on April 4. It called for women to join their male kin in battle, to
"prepare to defend and to revenge our brothers!" Passive resistance was
not the goal, although u n a r m e d self-sacrifice could be tried if all else
failed: "If the infamous ones who shoot the prisoners and assassinate our
leaders turn their machine guns against a crowd of u n a r m e d women, so
much the better! T h e cry of h o r r o r and indignation from France and the
world will achieve what we have wanted!" But a r m e d resistance was more
desirable than martyrdom, n o matter what form it might have to take: "If
the guns and bayonets are all being used by our brothers, there will still be
paving stones with which to crush the traitors." 8 3
An a n n o u n c e m e n t that women who were "ready to die for the triumph
of the Revolution" would meet to f o r m committees in each arrondissement
for the defense of Paris followed the appeal. 8 4 T h e organization that
emerged was the Union des Femmes p o u r la Defense de Paris et les Soins
aux Blesses, led by a central organizing committee of eight women and
presided over by Elizabeth Dmitrieff. T h e leaders of the Union des
Femmes publicly a n n o u n c e d that "the success of the present c o n f l i c t . . . is
as important to the women as it is to the men of Paris" and declared their
resolve to "fight until we win or die in defense of o u r c o m m o n rights," if
the enemy should enter Paris. 8 5
W h e n a g r o u p of citoyennes pleaded in their capacity as wives and moth-
ers for an armistice so brothers could recognize each other and come to a
peaceful solution, the Union des Femmes responded quickly to the
"shameful proclamation." "It is n o t peace b u t all-out war that the women
workers of Paris demand! Conciliation today amounts to betrayal!" they de-
clared. "Paris will not give in. . . . T h e women of Paris will prove to France
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and to the world t h a t . . . they are as capable as their brothers of giving u p

their lives in the cause of the C o m m u n e , the cause of the People!
Public declarations like these, combined with the reactivation of
women's vigilance committees (originally created during the Prussian
siege) worried conservatives. This was n o t the way women were supposed
to act Even m o r e alarming, however, were the public appearances of
women who spurred o n the m e n and declared their own willingness to
fight by their words, their uniforms, and their weapons. Women marching
through the streets, clad in various uniforms, carrying weapons, and
proposing, at the very least, to join the fighting became a c o m m o n sight.
Conservatives took them and other "exotic" groups as evidence of the
Parisian p e n c h a n t for flamboyant theatricality. D. A. Bingham reported
with typical British condescension that "the streets were filled with swash-
bucklers who indulged in fanciful uniforms and quaint denominations,
and appeared to be u n d e r n o control." For those who desired more detail,
h e added a footnote that listed the swashbucklers: "Mohicans of Marseilles
Desperadoes of Tarascon, Outlaws of Carcasson [sic], Amazones f w ] of
the Seine etc " 8 7 It is true that a variety of military groups, each with its
own distinctive uniform, had companies in Paris. Nevertheless, Bingham's
statement should be read as caricature n o t fact.

T h e r e probably were n o t many a r m e d and u n i f o r m e d women m Paris
in 1871 b u t there h a d b e e n a proposal to create some female battalions
during the Prussian siege, and the ridicule that it h a d attracted lingered in
the public imagination and vocabulary. T h e proposed battalions, to be
called Amazons of the Seine had b e e n the idea of Felix Belly. O n October
3 1870 h e had suggested that ten battalions of women, composed of eight
companies of 150 women each, should be trained and a r m e d to help de-
fend the barricades against the Prussians. Green posters h a d broadcast the
idea a r o u n d the city. Women who wished to volunteer were u r g e d to bring
a m e m b e r of the National Guard who could vouch for their good charac-
ter to 36 rue Turbigo. Belly r e p o r t e d later that fifteen h u n d r e d women
had signed up, b u t the National Guard had n o t b e e n interested in such a
battalion. 8 8 .
Belly's views o n women were rooted in the gender conceptions of his day,
although h e combined t h e m in an unusual way. H e believed that women
would make "model soldiers" n o t because of their similarities to m e n but
because of their differences. Women, h e asserted, "like military uniforms,
have an instinct for the war of ambush . . . drink little and above all d o not
smoke " 8 9 H e also, as Edith T h o m a s wryly noted, t h o u g h t of everything.
T h e battalions would be f u n d e d by the donations of wealthy women whose
jewelry would be confiscated anyway if the Prussians invaded the city. The
LES AWIAZONES DE LA S E I N E .
CONSEIL DE R E V I S I O N
FIGURE 10. The Amazons of the Seine. "Reviewing recruits." Bibliotheque Nationale.
pay would be t .5 francs per day (half what the m e n e a r n e d in the Nation-
al Guard). A female doctor would be attached to each battalion. Appro-
priate weapons would be selected for the women. And special uniforms
with black and orange jackets, pants, and hats would be created for t h e m . 9 0
The battalions came into existence only in the public imagination and
the drawings of caricaturists, 91 where they lived on well past the end of the
war with Prussia. O n e anonymous caricature was particularly popular (fig.
10). It depicts a small but fully clothed Napoleon III reviewing a collection
of female recruits, clad only in boots. T h e women range from short and
chubby to tall and skinny. Some look rather shyly at the ground, others at
Napoleon; o n e peers down at him as though at a small oddity, while an-
other, chubbiest of them all, looks longingly over her shoulder at a shape-
ly "araazon" clad in the proposed u n i f o r m . 9 2 T h e messages are multiple.
The women themselves are ridiculed, as is the idea of female soldiers. They
stand at attention (it is a military review), but their size and shape demon-
strate their unfitness—and, by extension, all women's unfitness—for mili-
tary service. These are n o athletic amazons. Their interest in the battalion,
o n l , is he pfaced in the company of these inappropr.ate warnors, h e ,s

only ts he placeu m a n h o o d in quest,on.
Turbieot o n e day while women were registering for the battalion, m e r e

he r e p o r t e d later h e saw "a staircase crowded with recruits, who were most-
SSSSSttttZTJ»
porter of » „ m e n ' s causes. During the Prmstan srege h e f o u n d e d a Com
which they could use to kill Prussians.
at Z i n g the siege, observed that "the tall scraggy figure with the venera-
b l e b e a r d a n d wfld glare of the crazy p r o p h e t was just the sort of solitary
male a women's club would e l e c t ! - 7 While the meaning of this statemen
T l s c m e Jelhnek's attempted humor, like that of the caricaturists, is
Ä ' Ä S M lingered to u n d e r m i n e and n d i c . e

women who wanted £ participate in the city's
T h e anonymous caricature continued to appear m the streets^ O n A p
, A n d r e l e o took the press to task for ridiculing the idea of ^
of amazons It was particularly offensive that m e n who h a d celebrated
w o Z ' s heroism m ' t h e past now criticized women's desires to d e f e n d ^
C o m m u n e T h e case in point was J e a n n e Hachette, who, like J e a n n e d Arc,
C o m m u n e , i n e ca h J 99 h B e a u v a l s w a s los-
was a fifteenth-century French heroine, in 47 , w
The Symbolic Female Figure77
ing its battle against the due de Bourgogne, Hachette climbed a wall, seized
the Burgundians' standard, and rallied the city's defenders. 1 0 0
T h e C o m m u n e press may have b e e n persuaded by Leo, b u t critics of the
C o m m u n e certainly were not. They knew a good opportunity for ridicule
when they saw it. Catulle Mendes's eyewitness description of the caricature
is liberally sprinkled with misogynist associations and remarks. Allegedly
upset by the caricatures that a d o r n e d the walls of Paris, h e nevertheless de-
scribed their contents for his readers. T h e artists, h e likened to "highborn
and depraved women [who] wear masks and engage in hideous orgies." 1 0 1
Then he t u r n e d to the Amazons of the Seine. Whereas the artist m a d e f u n
of the women, Mendes criticized with a heavy hand. T h e l a m p o o n e d but
not completely unappealing women of the caricature became "formidable
monstrosities," "Himalayan masses of flesh," "pyramids of bone," and
"creatures of ugliness and immodesty," as though the objects of the artist's
imagination were themselves to blame for their appearance and their
nakedness.
H o r r o r of h o r r o r s ! "Review of t h e Amazons of Paris," it is called. O h formi-

dable monstrosities! if t h e brave Amazons are like these, it will suffice to place
t h e m u n d r e s s e d in t h e first row in battle, a n d I a m sure that n o t a soldier of
the line, n o t a g u a r d i a n of t h e peace, n o t a g e n d a r m e will hesitate a m o m e n t
at t h e sight. But in t h e field, everyone, without e x c e p t i o n , will flee in terri-
fied haste, f o r g e t t i n g in their panic even to t u r n t h e butt ends of their rifles
in t h e air. O n e of these A m a z o n s — b u t why has my sympathy f o r t h e a m a t e u r s
of collections led m e into the description of these h i d e o u s creatures without
clothing?—one of them... b u t no, I p r e f e r leaving to your imagination those
Himalayan masses of flesh a n d pyramids of b o n e , these Penthesileas of t h e
C o m m u n e of Paris! 1 0 2
The n u m b e r of women who took u p arms to help the National Guard,

or wanted to, is unclear. Their existence, however, is not. Women carrying
guns, sometimes in uniform, sometimes not, were a fairly c o m m o n sight
in Paris. O n May i, for instance, E d m o n d de G o n c o u r t saw a woman with
a rifle on h e r shoulder in a g r o u p of exhausted national guardsmen re-
turning from Issy. 103 In addition to the women who were injured and killed
in early April, the C o m m u n a r d papers r e p o r t e d favorably on several
women who f o u g h t with the National Guard. A woman with the 6 i s t Bat-
talion fought "energetically," "killing several g e n d a r m e s and gardiens de la
paix." The widow of Colonel R o c h e b r u n e f o u g h t with the i 9 2 d Battalion
to revenge the death of h e r husband. A cantiniere was shot in the leg when
she led the 208th Battalion into battle, shouting, 'Vive la C o m m u n e ! " An-
o t h e r cantiniere, w h e n she killed a g e n d a r m e w h o was p u r s u i n g h e r in

N e u m , w o n a n o v a ü o n f r o m t h e crowd w a t c h i n g f r o m b e h i n d t h e city w 11.
A n d Louise Michel, w h o f o u g h t in m a n y battles wtth t h e N a t i o n a l G u a r d ,
received c o n s i d e r a b l e a t t e n t i o n f r o m t h e Parisian n e w s p a p e r s .
By t h e m i d d l e of May, r u m o r s a b o u t battalions of w o m e n were circulat-
i n g a l t h o u g h r e p o r t s a b o u t t h e n u m b e r a n d size of t h e s e g r o u p s are con-
tradictory Vizetelly h a d h e a r d t h e r u m o r s a n d r e p o r t e d t h a t a r m s were d i ,
t n b T t e d "to a c o n s i d e r a b l e n u m b e r of f e m a l e volunteers, w h o m a r c h e d o
t h e HMel-de-Ville." 1 0 5 Sebastien Commissaire, a p r o - C o m m u n e r e p u b l *
t h e e n d of t h e C o m m u n e . 1 0 6 T h e Times r e p o r t e d o n May 18 t h a t t h e
welfth legion of t h e N a t i o n a l G u a r d h a d f o r m e d a battalion of w o m e n
V h o hi a d d i t i o n to their o t h e r military duties are to d i . r m ^ h c a f l y a h
runaways." 1 0 7 C o m m u n a r d B e n o i t M a l o n r e p o r t e d similarly m his hurtory
o f h i C o m m u n e t h a t "on May i s , a c o m p a n y of w o m e n o r g a n i z e d a n d
a m e d voluntarily, m a r c h e d with t h e twelfth l e g i o n . " 1 0 8 J u l e s S i m o n , a
m e m b e r of T h i e r s s c a b i n e t in Versailles, r e p o r t e d in his m e m o i r s t h a t t h e
des F e ^ w o u t a of 250o
by m e n , well a r m e d a n d e q u i p p e d , w h o were reviewed o n t h e 15th M a i n
t h e c o u r t y a r d of t h e Tuileries by two g e n e r a l officers, a n d a d e l e g a t e of t h e
C o m m u n e »•«••' H o w m u c h f i g h t i n g these g r o u p s were e n g a g e d in b e f o r e
S T s l a m e sanglante is unclear, b u t g r o u p s of w o m e n a r m e d with rifles
d i d d e f e n d t h e b a r r i c a d e s d u r i n g t h e final week.
R e a c t i o n s to t h e C o m m u n e ' s f e m a l e d e f e n d e r s varied. A n d r e L e o re
J d e d t h e m a S perfectly n o r m a l . "Great causes excite t h e same s e n t i m e n t s
f n a n t u m a r h e a r t s , " she said, a n d w o m e n e x p e r i e n c e "the s a m e passions
as m e n H e r h u s b a n d , M a l o n , e c h o e d h e r t h o u g h t s in h i . m e m o i r : O n e
see^ this r e v o l u t i o n a r y action by w o m e n only in t h e g r e a t days of t h e peo-
ple " a n d h e n it spure t h e m e n o n . 1 1 1 J u l e s Claretie, o n t h e contrary, re-
g a r d e d t h e w o m e n as distinctly a b n o r m a l . " W h e n we r e m e m b e r he
m o a n e d in 1872, "squads of w o m e n , a r m e d , u n i f o r m e d , b e d e c k e d with
" waists a n d r e d cockades, r u n n i n g t h r o u g h t h e streets
a n d ike hysterics in politics, p r e p a r i n g f o r t h e i m p l a c a b l e reststance of the
lasf e i h t dlys, we can only w o n d e r f r o m w h a t slime t h e h u m a n species is
m a d e a n d w L animalistic instincts, h i d d e n a n d i n e r a d i c a b l e , still c r o u c h
t h e w o m e n p r i o r s , it s e e m e d
to h i m h a d a b a n d o n e d t h e i r f e m a l e roles a n d w e r e " d r u n k wnh hat,
Wliatâre these e x t r a o r d i n a r y b e i n g s w h o give u p t h e housewife s b r o o m
a M t h e seamstress's n e e d l e f o r a rifle," h e asked. "Who leave t h e i r chi -
d r e n to ,11 b e s i d e t h e i r lovers a n d t h e i r h u s b a n d s ? A m a z o n s of t h e street,
The Symbolic Female Figure77
magnificent and abject, they take their place between Penthesilea and
Theroigne de Mericourt [a flamboyant supporter of the revolution of 1789
who wore a red cape and pistols] What is this rage that seizes these fu-
ries? Do they know what they are doing? Do they understand why they are
dying?" 1 1 3
Laid out explicitly in Mendes's text and underlying his and Claretie's hy-
perbole is a fascination with these female warriors. For Claretie, they raised
questions about h u m a n nature and the origin of the species. For Mendes,
they had a kind of nobility. T h e C o m m u n e "has its cantinieres as '93 had
its tricoteuses," he wrote, "but the cantinieres are preferable. In their
hideousness, they have a kind of savage grandeur. Repulsive because they
are fighting against fellow Frenchmen, against a foreign enemy, these
women would be sublime." 1 1 4
Lest women be attracted to such behavior, Mendes hastened to include
a moral tale about the consequences of such passion for women. W h e n o n e
of these "viragoes" entered a shop "with her g u n o n h e r shoulder and her
bayonet covered with blood," and was challenged by a woman, "she sprang
u p o n h e r adversary, and bit h e r violently in the throat," and then, before
she could fire her gun, "she suddenly t u r n e d pale, d r o p p e d h e r gun, and
sank to the floor. She was dead. H e r fury had caused a r u p t u r e of an
aneurism." 1 1 5 T h e wages of sin (and this behavior was sinful in Mendes's
eyes) were death.
Like the bourgeois literary m e n who criticized the C o m m u n e , anti-
C o m m u n e caricaturists were also drawn to the female warriors and barri-
cade fighters. In his zodiac series, Nerac presented the female warrior as
Jeanne d'Arc, but only to distinguish between the two (see fig. 7). Bertall
emphasized the crossing of g e n d e r lines in a drawing of a woman with h e r
hair coiled tightly on h e r head, dressed neatly in an officer's u n i f o r m that
comes close to disguising h e r sex (fig. 11). T h e male and female figures
sketched in behind h e r — m e n in similar uniforms (albeit not officers' uni-
forms) and a woman in a dress and shawl—point u p the oddness of the
colonelle. H e r right a r m and foot mimic those of the woman (although the
colonelle has only her t h u m b tucked in her pocket, while the skirted woman
has her full h a n d concealed), but her head and left side repeat the posture
of a man who stands on the far right of the drawing. Neither male n o r fe-
male, she stands alone, an unnatural figure who demonstrates the unnat-
uralness of the C o m m u n e .
Bertall's drawing "The Barricade," places the female warrior in action,
capturing the passion and fury that Claretie and Mendes associated with
these women (fig. 12). A disheveled amazon, brandishing the red flag of
revolution and a b u r n i n g firebrand (which instantly identifies her not just
lOO
FIGURE 1 1 . Bertall, "La Colonelle." The Communists of Paris, i8yi: Types-

Physiognomies-Characters with Explanatory Text Descriptive of Each Design Written
Expressly for This Edition ( L o n d o n : B u c k i n g h a m , 1 8 7 3 ) .
FIGURE 12. Bertall, "La Barricade." Les communeux, 1871: Types, caracteres, costumes
(Paris: Gotschalk, 1871). Bibliotheque Nationale.
lOO
VUAM 13. The Taking of Pans (May JSJI): " T h e B a r r i c a d e at t h e Place B l a n c h e

d e f e n d e d by w o m e n . " B i b l i o t h e q u e N a t i o n a l e .
as a b a r r i c a d e fighter b u t as a p e t r o l e u s e ) , p r e p a r e s t o w r e a k h a v o c . Like
h s c o L e l l e a n d N . r a c ' s J e a n n e d'Arc, Bertall's
lated Since far m o r e m e n t h a n w o m e n a p p e a r to have d e f e n d e d the b a r
i a d e f a n d stnce t h i s w o r k was d o n e collectively, Bertall's d e c t s t o n to r e p -
resent A e b a r n c a d e s with a f e m a l e figure a n d t o p l a c e h e r m t s o l a t t o n is
c S b r a t e . B e r t a l l is n o t o n l y f a s c i n a t e d b y t h e f e m a l e w a r n o r . ( H t s r e p r e -
l a t i o n o f h e r is c o m p e l l i n g . ) H e a l s o u s e s h e r f e m u n n e f u r y a n d t s o l a -
ü o t t o represent not just the street fighüng of May b u t t h e u n n a t u r a l n e s s
I n c o n t r a ^ a p r o - C o m m u n e r e p r e s e n t a f i o n of t h e f e m a l e d e f e n d e r s of
th barricades p L e s women and m e n wtthm the same ^ o ^
g e t h e r t o d e f e n d t h e C o m m u n e ( f i g . 15). I n t h e f o r e g r o u n d o f h t s d a w
f n g a g u a r d s m a n o n h o r s e b a c k leans d o w n to s h a k e h a n d s (a m a l e g e s t u r e
o f a p p r o al) w i t h a w o m a n . B e h t n d t h e m , t w o w o m e n h e l p a w o u n d e d m a n
S I h e barricade while o t h e r w o m e n a n d m e n c o n t m u e the fight
O n t h e right, a w o m a n r e l o a d s h e r rifle; o n t h e left, a s e c o n d mounted
g u a r d s m a n p o i n t s t o w a r d t h e b a t t l e . A r e d f l a g flies o v e r t h e s c e n e , a n d a
d o u d of s m o k e rising f r o m t h e battle obliterates m u c h of t h e b a c k g r o u n d
77
and part of the barricade. (It also provides a frame within the frame for
the figures.) Although the two guardsmen on horses look like figures of
authority, the handshake is comradely, as though this woman were in
charge of this defense. What distinguishes the women f r o m the m e n is
their clothing. T h e women wear skirts; the m e n , pants. Otherwise, gender
distinctions would be impossible to make, as Bertall's colonelle d e m o n -
strates. All these barricade defenders are a r m e d (including those helping
the w o u n d e d guardsman) and all of them are active.
What seems historically o d d about the scene, given its identification as
the defense of the place Blanche, is the presence of men. In legend and
history, the place Blanche was d e f e n d e d only by 120 w o m e n . 1 1 6 But the
truth the drawing conveys is not historical literalness. Instead, the message
lies in the reversals between this scene and those depicted by the anti-Com-
m u n e caricaturists. H e r e the c o m m u n a r d s and c o m m u n a r d e s work to-
gether, caring for each other, respecting each other, and defending both
the idea and the existence of the C o m m u n e . They will n o t win, as the view-
er knows. They will be overwhelmed as the figures in the drawing are al-
most dwarfed by the buildings and smoke a r o u n d them. But they and the
cause they defend are portrayed as noble.
Female Orators
By 1871 nightly debates in churches, converted into political clubs, were

a standard feature of French revolutions. Ordinary citizens and elected of-
ficials, women and men, the old and the young, the educated and unedu-
cated thronged the naves and m o u n t e d the pulpits to proclaim their ideals,
threaten their enemies, and engage in political theater. For politically
minded women, these nightly debates were an important f o r u m , since they
were excluded f r o m the electorate and f r o m the governing body of the
C o m m u n e . Some clubs were exclusively female; others attracted a mixed
audience. Paul Fontoulieu, whose history of the churches of Paris u n d e r
the C o m m u n e is the most extensive source of information about the po-
litical clubs, c o m m e n t e d frequently (and critically) o n the attendance and
participation of women. We learn f r o m him that there were "as many fe-
male as male orators at the Club de Saint-Eustache." At the club in Saint-
Leu, "one always saw a large n u m b e r of women. And at the club in Notre-
Dame de la Croix at Menilmontant, "women were n u m e r o u s at the
meetings and often there were only women." Indeed, "so many women
wanted to speak that two or three times there were quarrels." 1 1 7
Many who spoke at the clubs were simply women of the people who had
lOO 112Unruly Women of Paris
s o m e t h i n g t h e y w a n t e d t o say. O t h e r s a l r e a d y w e r e o r w f > u l d b c , : o , t K . w e l l -
k n o w n r e c a l l Lonise Mtchel frequently p r e s s e d over the C u b d 1
R e v o l u t i o n i n t h e c h u r c h of S a i n t - B e r n a r d d e la C h a p e l l e . B e a t r i x E x c o t
fons was t h e v i c e - p r e s i d e n t of t h e C l u b d e la B o u l e N o i r e . A n d r e L e o s p o k e
a u r C l u b d e la D e l i v r a n c e a t t h e T r i n i t * . P a u l e M i n c k o f t e n s p o k e a t t h e
c l u b in t h e c h u r c h of S a m t - S u l p i c e a n d p r e s i d e d o v e r t h e c l u b a t N o t r e -
D a m e d e la C r o i x a t M e n i l m o n t a n t . 1 1 8 l e c t e r n s in
T h e w o m e n who m o u n t e d the pulpits m churches a n d the m
m e e t i n g h a l l s e m b r a c e d a variety of p o l i t i c a l p o s i t i o n s a n d - p o u s e d
rietv of a c t i o n s . S o m e f o c u s e d t h e i r a t t e n t i o n o n priests ; n u n s , d r a f t
d o d g e r s , a n d t h e i d l e r i c h - t h e " e n e m i e s of t h e r e v o l u t i o n . " O t h e r s w a n t -
e d social reforms a n d p o l i t i c a l r i g h t s f o r w o m e n .
, n of a n t i c l e r i c a l i s m i n t h e C o m m u n e was g i v e n v o i c e m t h e p o -
U t i c a c l u b s . W o m e n as well as m e n c a l l e d f o r t h e i n v e s t i g a t e , a r r e s t , a n d
e x e c u t i o n of p r i e s t s a n d n u n s . A t S a i n t - N i c o l a s d e s C h a m p s , a w o m a n sug-
g e t e d t h a t t h e b o d i e s of t h e sixty t h o u s a n d P a n s i a n P - ' - ^r counn
s h o u l d b e u s e d i n s t e a d of s a n d b a g s f o r c o n s t r u c t i n g b a r r i c a d e s . At
w f e o i , a n o t h e r w o m a n s a i d all t h e n u n s s h o u l d b e ^ . n ^ e S e m e
b e c a u s e t h e y h a d p o i s o n e d t h e w o u n d e d g u a r d s m e n in t h e h o s p i t a l s .
F o n t o u l i u w h o r e c o u n t e d t h e s e stories, was p a r t i c u l a r l y c o n c e r n e d a b o u t
a ^ d e r e a l i s m . "It was t h e r u l e in all t h e c l u b s t o e x c i t e t h e w o r s t p a s s i o n s
a g a i n s t t h e C h u r c h a n d its m i n i s t e r s , " h e a n n o u n c e d a t t h e b e g i n n i n g of
Ws b o o k T h e s a m e a t t a c k s w e r e r e p r o d u c e d a t e a c h session i n d i f f e r e n t
T h e C o m m u n e ' s anticlericalism a l a r m e d the bourgeotste m g e n e r a l In

some churches the c o m m u n a r d s a n d c o m m u n a r d e s took over complete-
, O n e (Sa n t - P i e r r e d e M o n t m a r t r e ) was e v e n c o n v e r t e d i n t o a w o r k s h o p
w h e r e fifty w o m e n m a d e m i l i t a r y u n i f o r m s . T h e w o r k e r s t u r n e d t h e m a m
t e r i n t o l b u f f e t table for meals a n d sang, according *
most o b s c e n e songs."122 Such scenes were intolerable to the religious
t h e R e v o l u t i o n of 1 7 8 9 h a d b e e n . I n o t h e r c h u r c h e s p r i e s t s a n d p o l i o c a l
a d i c a ^ c h i e v e d a c c o m o d a t i o n ; the priests c o n d u c e d
d u r i n g t h e day, a n d t h e r a d i c a l s h e l d m e e t i n g s a t n i g h t S u c h a n a r r a n g e
ment was unheard of in t h e first r e v o l u t i o n . H i n t e d their
W h i l e s o m e w o m e n voiced anticlerical sentiments, o t h e r s d e v o t e d their
a t t e n t i o n t o t h e w a r a n d t h e m e n w h o w e r e s u p p o s e d t o b e fighting it. M e n
w h o s W r k e d s e r v i c e in t h e n a t i o n a l g u a r d by h i d i n g o r t r y i n g t o e s c a p e t h e
: c a s t i g a t e d . A t Saint-Eloi in t h e r u e d e Reuilly, C a t h < , r m e R o g . s ; a r t
t h r e a t e n e d t o " t e a r o u t t h e livers" of t h e " c o w a r d s a n d s l u g g a r d s w h o r e
f u L d t o fight a g a i n s t t h e "assassins of Versailles." T w o days later, a n o t h e r
c o m m u n a r d e at t h e s a m e club e x h o r t e d w o m e n to s h o o t their h u s b a n d s
if t h e y r e f u s e d t o f i g h t . O t h e r s w e r e s u s p i c i o u s o f t h e N a t i o n a l G u a r d o f f i -
c e r s w h o , it w a s a l l e g e d , w e r e r e s i s t i n g c o n f r o n t a t i o n w i t h Versailles. O t h -
e r s c o m p l a i n e d o f t h e way t h e o f f i c e r s w e r e t r e a t i n g t h e a m b u l a n c i e r e s . 1 2 4
T h e rich were equally u n p o p u l a r . At Saint-Jacques d u Haut-Pas, a canti-
n i e r e d e m a n d e d t h e e r e c t i o n of f o u r p e r m a n e n t guillotines in Paris to ter-
rify t h e a r i s t o c r a t s . A t S a i n t - L e u , a w o m a n d e m a n d e d t h a t t h e r e n t s t h e r i c h
collected should b e "uniformly r e d u c e d to 5 0 0 francs." At La Trinite a mat-
tress m a k e r w a n t e d to r e m e d y t h e s h o r t a g e of l i n e n s a n d m a t t r e s s e s f o r t h e
m o b i l e hospitals by r e q u i s i t i o n i n g t h e m , o r at least t h e m o n e y f o r t h e m ,
f r o m t h e h o m e s of t h e wealthy. S h e knew, she said, " s o m e h o u s e s w h e r e
t h e r e are h e a p s of jewels." A w o m a n at La Delivrance told a n a u d i e n c e that
t h e r i c h , a l o n g w i t h p r i e s t s a n d n u n s , s h o u l d b e e l i m i n a t e d . "We will b e
happy," s h e d e c l a r e d , "only w h e n we have n o m o r e bosses, n o m o r e rich
people, no m o r e landlords!"125
O t h e r s d e m a n d e d t h e f r e e i n g of A u g u s t e Blanqui f r o m jail a n d pro-
p o s e d t h e daily e x e c u t i o n of h o s t a g e s u n t i l t h a t h a p p e n e d . ( B l a n q u i was a
social t h e o r i s t a n d v e t e r a n r e v o l u t i o n a r y w h o s e l e a d e r s h i p was sorely
m i s s e d b y t h e C o m m u n a r d s . H e h a d b e e n i m p r i s o n e d b y t h e n a t i o n a l gov-
e r n m e n t o n t h e eve of t h e C o m m u n e f o r his r o l e in t h e O c t o b e r 3 1 , 1 8 7 0 ,
u p r i s i n g a g a i n s t t h e G o v e r n m e n t of N a t i o n a l D e f e n s e . T h e C o m m u n a r d s
h a d h o p e d to e x c h a n g e h i m f o r t h e a r c h b i s h o p of Paris w h o m they h e l d
captive, b u t T h i e r s r e f u s e d t h e e x c h a n g e . ) S o m e u r g e d w o m e n to w o r k o n
the barricades, to b e c o m e ambulancieres, or to take u p arms. W o m e n were
r e a d y t o f i g h t e v e n if t h e m e n w e r e n o t , t h e y d e c l a r e d . O n M a y 12 N a t h a l i e
L e m e l t o l d a l a r g e f e m a l e a u d i e n c e a t L a T r i n i t e , " T h e d e c i s i v e m o m e n t is
coming, w h e n we m u s t b e p r e p a r e d to die for o u r country. N o m o r e weak-
n e s s , n o m o r e h e s i t a t i o n ! T o a r m s , all o f y o u ! L e t e v e r y w o m a n d o h e r
duty!"126
T h e m o s t political w o m e n d e b a t e d t h e tenets of socialism a n d republi-
canism. O t h e r s p r o p o s e d that the h o u s e s of prostitution s h o u l d b e abol-
i s h e d a n d called f o r t h e legalization of d i v o r c e a n d t h e r e c o g n i t i o n of f r e e
unions. S o m e w a n t e d a n e n d to religious instruction. O n e w o m a n w a n t e d
t h e f l o w e r s t h a t w e r e l e f t i n t h e c h u r c h e s t o b e g i v e n t o s c h o o l c h i l d r e n as
prizes. A n d everywhere w o m e n a n d m e n sang t h e "Marseillaise."127
W h a t w a s a s e r i o u s p o l i t i c a l activity f o r c o m m u n a r d e s a n d c o m m u n a r d s
was a s p e c t a t o r s p o r t f o r b o u r g e o i s m e n , w h o s e e m t o h a v e v i s i t e d t h e c l u b s
for the sheer p l e a s u r e of b e i n g scandalized. A m o n g t h e m were Paul
F o n t o u l i e u , P h i l i b e r t A u d e b r a n d , D e n i s A r t h u r B i n g h a m , E r n e s t Vizetelly,
C a t u l l e M e n d e s , E d m o n d d e G o n c o u r t , E. B. W a s h b u r n e , J o h n R u s s e l l
Young, Jules Claretie, M a x i m e D u C a m p , a n d the c o r r e s p o n d e n t s for the
1 12 Unruly Women of Paris
Times, a n d t h e Daily News. As a s o n r e e of i i n f o r m a t i o n ^ o u t t h e d u b s a n d

their female participants, these m e n were far f r o m unbiased, b u t they p r o
m 0 s t of t h e i n f o r m a t i o n w e h a v e , s i n c e t h e C o m m u n a r d p r e s s p u b -
l i s h e d v e r y little a b o u t t h e m .
S e v e r a l b o u r g e o i s o b s e r v e r s c o m m e n t e d o n t h e d e c o r u m of t h e a u c -
e n c e a n d s p e a k e r s . G o n c o u r t saw m e n " a u t o m a t i c a l l y r a i s e t h e i r h a n d s t o
t h e i r c a p s " a l t h o u g h t h e y l e f t t h e m o n w h e n t h e y saw o t h e r s h a d n o t r e
m o v e d t h e m . 1 2 9 T h e Daily News c o r r e s p o n d e n t f o u n d it o d d t h a t t h e
Z e n " d i p p e d their fingers in t h e now e m p t y basin for h o y w a t e , a n d
d e v o u t l y c r o s s e d t h e m s e l v e s , " a l t h o u g h " n o n e of t h e m a p p e a r e d i n t h e
degree shocked or even surprised at the desecration that the emp
was b e i n g s u b j e c t e d t o . " 1 - B i n g h a m , i n c o n t r a s t , t h o u g h t t h e sancti-
ty of t h e b u i W i n g w a s n o t lost u p o n t h e s c o f f e r s . " 1 3 1 Y o u n g f o u n d * e a u -
dience "quite docile a n d polite" even w h e n the speeches were boring.
W a s h b u r n e saw " n o t h i n g c a l c u l a t e d t o o f f e n d t h e t a s t e ol - v ^
T h e w o m e n w h o f r e q u e n t e d the political clubs were primarily f r o m the
w o r k i n g class. T h o s e w h o p l a y e d o r g a n i z a t i o n a l o r l e a d e r s h i p r o l e s w o r e
r e d scarfs, as d i d t h e m a l e l e a d e r s of t h e C o m m u n e . S o m e h a d p i s t o l s
t u c k e d i n t o t h e i r sashes; m o s t d i d n o t . S o m e s m o k e d p i p e s ; o t h e r s n u r s e d
h e t b a b i e s . T h o s e w h o d i d n o t give s p e e c h e s " c h a t t e d away a b ™
t o p i c , a n d w a n d e r e d i n a n d o u t . " 1 3 4 T o t h e b o u r g e o i s o b s e r v e r s , all t h i s be^
h a v i o r , as well as t h e w o m e n ' s c l o t h i n g a n d r h e t o r i c , was s h o c k i n g . If it h a d
n o t b e e n , t h e y w o u l d h a v e b e e n d i s a p p o i n t e d . If t h e y h e a r d o r saw n o t h -
ing scandalous, they r e p o r t e d o n the r u m o r s ^ a t h a d drawn t h e m to the
c l u b s i n t h e f i r s t p l a c e . W a s h b u r n e , for i n s t a n c e , h a d b e e n t o l d t h a t t h e y
s o m e t i m e s h a d t h e r e the m o s t e x t r a o r d i n a r y discussions, in which w o m e n
m i n g l e d , p a r t i c u l a r l y o n t h e i n t e r e s t i n g s u b j e c t of d i v o r c e , " e v e n t h o u g h
w h e n h e w e n t , h e h e a r d n o s u c h d i s c u s s i o n 1 3 5 Y o u n g b e l i e v e d t h a t if h e
h a d stayed l o n g e n o u g h , h e " m i g h t have h e a r d a n a d d r e s s o r two u p o n t h e
division of p r o p e r t y a n d t h e d u t y of g e n e r a l pillage.
T h e Timl c o r e s p o n d e n t a t t e n d e d a club o n t h e b o u l e v a r d d ' l t a h e with
a f e m a l e c o m p a n i o n w h o s e r o l e was t o d e f e n d h i m f r o m rabid citi-
z e n e s s e s ' i n c J s e of d a n g e r . " T h e c l u b m e t i n a "filthy r o o m . r e e k i n g w i t h
evil o d o u r s . " T h e citizenesses, w h o s e e m e d q u i t e u n i n t e r e s t e d m h m , w e r e
f r o m " t h e l o w e s t o r d e r of society." T h e y w o r e " l o o s e u n t i d y j a c k e t s , sure-
ly s i g n i f y i n g l o o s e m o r a l s , d e s p i t e t h e "white f r i l l e d c a p s u p o n their
h e a d s . " 1 3 7 F o n t o u l i e u , w h o visited m a n y c l u b s , was o b s e s s e d w i t h t h e p r e s -
ence of pipe-smoking a n d a r m e d w o m e n . 1 3 8 J
C a t u l l e M e n d e s , w i t h h e a v y s a r c a s m a n d i n s i n u a t i o n s of a l c o h o l i s m , d e -
s c r i b e d t h e s c e n e h e "saw" i n S a i n t - E u s t a c h e . W o m e n i n t h e h e r o i c r a g s
of t h e l a d i e s w h o s w e e p t h e s t r e e t s i n t h e m o r n i n g " w e r e g a t h e r e d , sever-
al o f w h o m " w e r e p r o u d t o b e a r i n t h e c e n t e r o f t h e i r f a c e s a [ r u b i c u n d ]
n o s e t h a t c o u l d fly o v e r t h e H o t e l d e V i l l e . " 1 3 9 T h e Daily News w r i t e r , w h o
w e n t to t h e s a m e m e e t i n g at Saint-Eustache a n d w h o was m o r e s y m p a t h e t -
ic t o t h e C o m m u n e , saw " r e s p e c t a b l y d r e s s e d w o m e n w i t h t h e i r g r o w n - u p
d a u g h t e r s , little s h o p k e e p e r s ' wives w i t h t h e i r y o u n g f a m i l i e s , [ a n d ] j o l l y
l o o k i n g dames de la halle, cocottes, ouvrieres,femmes dupeuple" (market women,
l o o s e w o m e n , w o r k i n g w o m e n , a n d w o m e n o f t h e p e o p l e ) , b u t h e a l s o saw
" t h o s e r e p u l s i v e l o o k i n g f e m a l e s o f a l m o s t all d e g r e e s o f a g e w h o f o r m t h e
typical f u r i e s of e x c i t e d Paris m o b s . " 1 4 0 W a s h b u r n e a n d Young, w h o c o u l d
find n o t h i n g else to criticize, w e r e m e s m e r i z e d by w o m e n k n i t t i n g , 1 4 1 a
s u r e sign of r e v o l u t i o n a r y v i o l e n c e to c o m e .
T h e s p e a k e r s a t t r a c t e d p a r t i c u l a r a t t e n t i o n , r e p r e s e n t e d v a r i o u s l y as r e -
p e l l e n t h a g s o r c o m p e l l i n g f u r i e s . M e n d e s saw "a tall g a u n t w o m a n w i t h a
n o s e like t h e b e a k of a hawk, w h o a p p e a r e d to have j a u n d i c e . " 1 4 2 T h e Times
c o r r e s p o n d e n t h e a r d "a fine-looking y o u n g w o m a n with streaming black
h a i r a n d f l a s h i n g eyes . . . [who] l o o k e d very h a n d s o m e , a n d m i g h t have
sat f o r t h e p o r t r a i t o f o n e o f t h e h e r o i n e s o f t h e first R e v o l u t i o n , " a "re-
spectable'-looking w o m a n "wearing a d e c e n t black gown a n d b o n n e t , " a n d
a w o m a n w h o " l o o k e d like a l a u n d r e s s . " 1 4 3 F o n t o u l i e u d w e l l e d less o n p h y s -
ical d e s c r i p t i o n a n d m o r e o n t h e i m m o r a l a n d c r i m i n a l b a c k g r o u n d o f
p r o m i n e n t speakers. T h e details were lurid. O n e w o m a n h a d c o m m i t t e d
infanticide; a n o t h e r h a d b e e n a mistress; a t h i r d was a prostitute; a f o u r t h
h a d b e e n c o n d e m n e d five t i m e s f o r t h e f t . O n e h a d b e e n n i c k n a m e d " t h e
a m a z o n of the i n s u r r e c t i o n " for h e r role in t h e revolution of 1848; a n o t h e r
h a d s p e n t f o u r y e a r s i n a h a r e m i n C o n s t a n t i n o p l e . S o m e w e r e t r i e d as
petroleuses; two p a r t i c i p a t e d in t h e assassination of t h e h o s t a g e s d u r i n g
the s e m a i n e sanglante; a n d another, h e claimed, "prowled a r o u n d t h e bar-
r i c a d e s i n o r d e r t o c u t o f f t h e h e a d s o f t h e d e a d a n d p e r h a p s o f t h e liv-
ing."144
T h e speeches that most interested bourgeois observers were about men,

w o m e n , m a r r i a g e , a n d divorce. ( F o n t o u l i e u was a n e x c e p t i o n ; h e was m o s t
c o n c e r n e d with t h e w o m e n ' s anticlericalism.) O r a t i o n s o n these topics
c o n f i r m e d the m e n ' s worst fears. T h e w o m e n were advocating n o t only
equality b e t w e e n t h e sexes b u t a n e n d to m a r r i a g e , a n d they w e r e assert-
i n g t h e s u p e r i o r i t y o f w o m e n . W e s t e r n c i v i l i z a t i o n w a s in d a n g e r . C a t u l l e
M e n d e s q u o t e d t h e w o m a n with a b e a k l i k e n o s e at l e n g t h : "To b e m a r r i e d
is t o b e a slave. . . . [It] c a n n o t b e t o l e r a t e d a n y l o n g e r i n a f r e e city. It o u g h t
to b e c o n s i d e r e d a c r i m e , a n d s u p p r e s s e d by t h e m o s t severe m e a s u r e s . "
D i v o r c e a l o n e w a s n o t a s o l u t i o n . It w a s o n l y a n " O r l e a n i s t e x p e d i e n t . " 1 4 5
M a r r i a g e itself h a d t o b e a b o l i s h e d . P a u s i n g a m o m e n t f o r " t h u n d e r o u s a p -
plause," she next declared that the pension benefits the C o m m u n e h a d
j ^2 Unruly Women of Paris
g r a n t e d to t h e widows a n d l o n g - t e r m c o m p a n i o n s of fallen g u a r d s m e n
s h o u l d b e g r a n t e d t o t h e i l l e g i t i m a t e c o m p a n i o n s only. "We, t h e illegiti-
m a t e c o m p a n i o n s , " s h e a n n o u n c e d , "will n o l o n g e r s u f f e r t h e l e g i t i m a t e
wives t o u s u r p r i g h t s t h e y n o l o n g e r possess, a n d w h i c h t h e y o u g h t n e v e r
t o h a v e h a d a t all. L e t t h e d e c r e e b e m o d i f i e d . All f o r t h e f r e e w o m e n , n o n e
for t h e slaves!"146
Like b o u r g e o i s writers, a n t i - C o m m u n e caricaturists s e l e c t e d d i v o r c e as
t h e issue to c o n v e y t h e s c a n d a l of w o m e n o r a t o r s , a n d to d e p i c t t h e m as
anti-male In "The G r r r r e a t F e m a l e Orator," the well-dressed b u t far-from-
pretty orator d o m i n a t e s the scene f r o m the raised pulpit in an u n n a m e d
c h u r c h (fig 14). S h e h o l d s a p a p e r w i t h t h e w o r d s "Loi s u r le d i v o r c e (Di-
v o r c e l a w ) o u t t o t h e c r o w d b e l o w h e r . T o h e r l e f t a n d s l i g h t l y a b o v e h e r is
a small s t a t u e of J e s u s w h o h o l d s a n olive b r a n c h o r p a l m f r o n d m his r i g h t
h a n d H i s h e a d is s u r r o u n d e d b y a h a l o ; h e r s b y a s t r a n g e - l o o k i n g , b u t p r e -
s u m a b l y stylish, h a t . H i s p a t i e n t a n d c a l m d e m e a n o r c o n t r a s t s w i t h h e r u n -
h a p p y b i d f o r a t t e n t i o n . W h o is a t h o m e h e r e , a n d t h e r e f o r e w h o is m h i s
n a t u r a l p l a c e , a n d w h o is n o t , is c l e a r .
O t h e r drawings carried the same t h e m e a n d message, although they did
n o t n e c e s s a r i l y r e f e r e x p l i c i t l y t o d i v o r c e . I n S e p t e m b e r , La Vie Pansienne
c a r r i e d a p i c t u r e by Gillot w h i c h also d e p i c t e d a w o m a n s p e a k i n g f r o m t h e
pulpit in a c h u r c h . H e r message, according to the caption u n d e r the draw-
r f . . , , 1 r „ , — ^ „ „ a wViir-Vi w a s nOW
ing was that c o n c u b i n a g e w o u l d take the place of m a r r i a g e , w h i c h
r e c o g n i z e d as i m m o r a l ; w o m e n w o u l d b e c o m e m e n a n d vice versa; a n d
c h i l d r e n w o u l d b e r e c o g n i z e d as t h e o f f s p r i n g of e v e r y o n e . Leonce
Sherer placed a w o m a n , holding a d o g u n d e r h e r a r m (rather than a child)
in t h e pulpit, a n d h a d h e r a n n o u n c e , "Citoyennes, d e a t h to t h e m e n ... 1
o f f e r m i n e i n s a c r i f i c e t o t h e c o u n t r y ; y o u s h o u l d all d o l i k e w i s e . T h e au-
d i e n c e r e s p o n d s "Yes, y e s . " 1 4 8
W h e n t h e Times c o r r e s p o n d e n t v i s i t e d a c l u b , h e h e a r d d e c l a r a t i o n s o t
w o m e n ' s s t r e n g t h s a n d m e n ' s w e a k n e s s e s . M u c h as a " f i n e - l o o k i n g y o u n g
w o m a n with streaming black hair a n d flashing eyes" i n t r i g u e d h i m there
was s o m e t h i n g in h e r eye t h a t m a d e h i m t h i n k t h a t h e " s h o u l d n o t like to
b e h e r h u s b a n d . " N o d o u b t h e was r e p e l l e d by h e r d e c l a r a t i o n t h a t t h o s e
"who call t h e m s e l v e s t h e m a s t e r s of c r e a t i o n " a r e "a set of dolts and her
a n n o u n c e m e n t to t h e w o m e n t h a t t h e m e n w h o " c o m p l a i n of b e i n g m a d e
t o fight, a n d a r e a l w a y s g r u m b l i n g o v e r t h e i r w o e s , " c o u l d g o a n d j o i n the
c r a v e n b a n d a t V e r s a i l l e s . " T h e w o m e n w o u l d d e f e n d t h e city w i t h o u t t h e m .
"We h a v e p e t r o l e u m , a n d we h a v e h a t c h e t s a n d s t r o n g h e a r t s , she de-
c l a r e d , " a n d a r e as c a p a b l e of b e a r i n g f a t i g u e as [ m e n ] . . . . T h o s e w h o wish
to fight may d o so side by side with us." 1 4 9
T h e illustrator F r e d e r i c T h e o d o r e Lix p l a y e d with n o t i o n s of t h e a m a -
PARIS SOUS LA C O M M U N E —
LA G R R R R A N D E O R A T E U S E
Du grrrrand Club des Amazones de la Commune.
FIGURE 14. "The G r r r r e a t Female O r a t o r of t h e G r r r r a n d A m a z o n Club of t h e

C o m m u n e . " Paris sous la Commune. Bibliotheque Nationale.
in he Monde Illustre, (fig. i 5 ) - P l i l ( i n S a n , f e m a l e aud ience,

in t h e pulpit, s p e a k i n g to:a p r e d o m i n a n t l y w o r l k m g < ^ ^ ^ ^
h e raised questions about bourgeoises at h o m e
= * g a „ c e ofherdofliingand
h e i s l e n d e r p h y s , t , u e p l a c e d h e r w i t h i n «We «.tings
T h e a u d i e n c e « f u l l of . h e s a m e SK,-eotypes h a a p p e a r , n ^
of t h e b o u r g e o i s v o y e u r s . L a r g e r , b e c a u s e t h e y | ' ^ of
m o r e s u b s t a n t i a l ,n p h y s i q u e t h a n t h e — ^ f ^ e t h e i r ba-
servers,«. ^ small b u ,
Writing later m the d e c a d e w h e n > believed
selves
^ a b oa bvo ve e m e n w h i l e e x a g g e r a t i n g n e u ~v . . ^ • t h e m .
c h u r c h e s t h a t were c o n v e r t e d into clubs, [the w o m e n U e v e ^
selves," h e d e c l a r e d . " I n t h e i r y a p p i n g v o i c e ^
p l a c e i n t h e s u n , t h e i r civil r i g h t s , t h e e q u a h t y ^ ^ w Q u l d
a n d o t h e r v a g u e c l a i m s t h a t h i d e P " ^ ^ ? ^ p l u r a l i t y of m e n "
gladly p u t i n t o p r a c t i c e : t h e p l u r a l i t y of m e m * to
that they w a n t e d to b e c o m e m e n ; t h a t < ! : i t o n e of

or even that they wanted to ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ t h e w o m e n t h e m s e l v e s as
Du Camp's " f who would d a n n p„-
masculinized.
FIGURE 15. Frederic Lix, "Scenes of Paris—A m e e t i n g of t h e w o m e n ' s club in the

church of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois." Le Monde Illustre, May 20, 1871, p. 312.
Bibliotheque Nationale.
Vizetelly, w h o s e details a b o u t t h e s p e a k e r s a r e n o t his o w n b u t a r e d r a w n

f r o m Fontoulieu's work, wrote in 1914 when the w o m a n suffrage move-
m e n t was a topie of considerable d e b a t e a n d turmoil m ^ t a u r D q w ^
f r o m his sources, h e associated t h e w o m a n w h o was alleged to have de
capitated corpses with his o w n particular nemesis, t h e suffragettes. At he
c l u b " h e r e p o r t e d , "this c r e a t u r e r a v e d frantically, h e r face w e a r i n g he
while m u c h t h e s a m e e x p r e s s i o n as t h a t w h i c h m a y b e o b s e r v e d o n the
countenances of militant suffragettes w h e n they are hurling choi«.im-
precations at police-magistrates a n d others. She was doubtless of m u c h the
b r e e d - t h e b r e e d o f t h e possedees de Loudun a n d t h e convulsronnarres
de Saint-Medard."153 . , •
Later historians sometimes a d o p t e d t h e s a m e d e p r e c a t m g t o n e as t h e n
b o u r g e o i s s o u r c e s i n d i s c u s s i n g t h e p o l i t i c a l c l u b s , b u t t h e n focus was_on
s e x n o t politics. Alistair H o m e , i n h i s o n l y r e f e r e n c e t o t h e R e d Clubs,
reported t h a t "at St.-Eustache W a s h b u r n e listened to a tncoteuse, ranUng
f r o m t h e p u l p i t , i n f a v o u r of t h e a b o l i t i o n of m a r r i a g e . - I n fact, this
statement misreports Washburne. Richard Cobb opined that m o s t of t h e
s p o k e s w o m e n of the m o v e m e n t . . . probably . w e r e as — h concerned
w i t h clerical c o n d e m n a t i o n of f r e e love a n d of t h e u n m a r r i e d m o t h e r as
w i t h t h e C h u r c h as a p i l l a r o f V e r s a i l l e s o r d e r . — T o t h e s e t w e n t i e t h - c e n -
turv men the politically radicalized c o m m u n a r d e s seemed as irrational
a n d t h r e a t e n i n g as t h e y h a d t o t h e i r n i n e t e e n t h -
b u t t h e t h r e a t a p p e a r e d m o r a l r a t h e r t h a n political. H a v m g left their place
beside the h e a r t h a n d ventured into the pulpit, the c o m m u n a r d e s were the
v e r y a n t i t h e s i s o f w o m a n h o o d a n d a t h r e a t t o m o r a l i t y a n d civilization.
T h e i r i d e a s , t h e r e f o r e , d i d n o t h a v e t o b e t a k e n seriously. I n d e e d histori-
a n s w e r e so c o n v i n c e d t h a t t h e y k n e w w h a t t h e w o m e n really w a n t e d ( f r e e
love) t h a t t h e y d i d n o t h a v e t o q u o t e t h e i r s o u r c e s c o r r e c t l y , a n d t h e y c o u l d
w a n d e r into t h e t e r r a i n of "probably" w i t h o u t t r e p i d a t i o n .
As c o n t e m p o r a r i e s a n d historians have told the story of the Commune,

they have drawn u p o n w h a t M a r i n a W a r n e r calls "a l e x i c o n of f e m a l e types
t o e x p l a i n a n d c o n t a i n t h e a c t i o n s of its f e m a l e a d h e r e n t s . - 6 T h e l e x i c o n
i n c l u d e s grieving m o t h e r s a n d widows, d e d i c a t e d a n d h e r o i c
r i o r s , h o r r i f i c f u r i e s , s c a n d a l o u s o r a t o r s , a n d a n g e l s of m e r c y . All t h e s e cat-
e g o r i e s w e r e c u l t u r a l l y available i n 1 8 7 1 . S o m e w e r e v e r y o l d ; o t h e r s h a d
a c q u i r e d n e w c o n n o t a t i o n s i n t h e p r e c e d i n g c e n t u r y of r e v o l u t i o n ; b u t all
of t h e m d e f i n e d a n d l i m i t e d u n d e r s t a n d i n g of t h e C o m m u n e b y carica-
t u r i n g t h e a c t i o n s of its w o m e n a n d d e n y i n g t h e c o m p l e x a n d c o n f l i c t i n g
thoughts a n d feelings that motivated them.
T h e m a j o r a p p e a l of t h e s e f e m a l e types lay i n t h e i r ability t o c o n v e y
13
m o r a l a n d political j u d g m e n t s a b o u t w o m e n a n d t h e C o m m u n e . Both
sides in t h e conflict c o u l d a n d d i d u s e f e m a l e victims a n d grieving w o m e n
t o f o c u s a t t e n t i o n u p o n t h e evils o f t h e o p p o s i t i o n . C a n t i n i e r e s a n d a m -
bulancieres w h o a c c o m p a n i e d the g u a r d s m e n into battle symbolized the
n o b i l i t y o f t h e C o m m u n e ' s c a u s e t o its s u p p o r t e r s , b u t t h e y w e r e o b j e c t s o f
r i d i c u l e a n d h a t r e d f o r t h e Versaillais. S u p p o r t e r s o f V e r s a i l l e s s i m i l a r l y c a r -
i c a t u r e d a n d villified t h e p u b l i c o r a t o r s a n d f e m a l e w a r r i o r s of t h e C o m -
m u n e . A s t h e w o m e n w e r e e n n o b l e d , r i d i c u l e d , a n d villified, s o w a s t h e
C o m m u n e . As h a d l o n g b e e n t h e c a s e , t h e w o m e n m a d e f a r b e t t e r r e p r e -
sentations than did their male comrades.
For conservatives w h o o p p o s e d the C o m m u n e , the most troubling
w o m e n w e r e its o r a t o r s a n d w a r r i o r s , s i n c e t h e y d i d n o t h a v e e v e n t h e fa-
c a d e o f a t r a d i t i o n a l f e m a l e r o l e t o c o v e r t h e i r activities, as t h e c a n t i n i e r e s
a n d a m b u l a n c i e r e s did. T h e y p o s e d a t h r e a t to conceptualizations of gen-
d e r w h i c h d i c h o t o m i z e d m a l e a n d f e m a l e traits. S e e n as a g g r e s s i v e r a t h e r
t h a n passive, self-sufficient r a t h e r t h a n helpless, w a r r i o r s r a t h e r than
p e a c e m a k e r s , critical r a t h e r t h a n s u p p o r t i v e of m e n , self-confident r a t h e r
than d e m u r e , i n d e p e n d e n t r a t h e r t h a n d e p e n d e n t , a n d definitely n o t frag-
ile, t h e y r a i s e d q u e s t i o n s a b o u t n o r m a l i t y a n d f e m i n i n i t y i n a c u l t u r e t h a t
d e f i n e d s u c h t r a i t s as n a t u r a l r a t h e r t h a n c u l t u r a l .
If t h e s e w e r e " n a t u r a l " w o m e n , t h e y p o s e d a t h r e a t t o t h e o r g a n i z a t i o n
o f s o c i e t y a n d p o l i t i c s . If t h e y w e r e " u n n a t u r a l " w o m e n , t h e y p o s e d n o s u c h
threat a n d the current g e n d e r definitions a n d the cultural institutions
b a s e d o n t h e m c o u l d b e m a i n t a i n e d . R e p r e s e n t i n g t h e m as a m a z o n s , f u -
ries, t r i c o t e u s e s , a n d v i r a g o e s p r o t e c t e d t h e b o u n d a r i e s b e t w e e n t h e s e x e s
by c a l l i n g t h e i r f e m i n i n i t y o r n a t u r a l n e s s i n t o q u e s t i o n . T h e e a s e w i t h
which a n t i - C o m m u n e writers a n d caricaturists u n d e r t o o k to represent
t h e m in this light a n d t h e relative ineffectiveness of a t t e m p t s to r e p r e s e n t
t h e m m o r e positively, d e m o n s t r a t e t h e p o w e r o f c u l t u r a l c a t e g o r i e s t o m e -
d i a t e u n d e r s t a n d i n g a n d m e a n i n g . W o m e n , as w e l l as m e n , h a d a c c e s s t o
t h e s e c u l t u r a l c a t e g o r i e s a n d t h e y saw t h e i r o w n a c t i o n s , as w e l l as t h o s e o f
o t h e r w o m e n , i n t e r m s o f t h e m , as t h e n e x t c h a p t e r will d e m o n s t r a t e .
C H A P T E R F O U R
The Femmes Fortes of Paris
M
ost of t h e w o m e n , like m o s t of t h e m e n , w h o lived t h r o u g h t h e
C o m m u n e , w h e t h e r t h e y s u p p o r t e d o r o p p o s e d it, a r e l o s t t o u s
b y t h e p a s s a g e o f t i m e a n d scarcity o f s o u r c e s . A f e w w o m e n , h o w -
ever, h a v e l e f t u s t h e i r o w n a c c o u n t s o f t h e C o m m u n e . S o m e w r o t e a n o n y -
m o u s a p p e a l s t o o t h e r w o m e n a n d c o n c e a l e d t h e i r n a m e s as w e l l as t h e i r
p e r s o n a l experiences. O t h e r s wrote diaries, letters, m e m o i r s , a n d newspa-
p e r articles. T h r e e w h o left r e c o r d s o c c u p i e d positions of p u b l i c p r o m i -
n e n c e : A n d r e Leo, the only f e m a l e j o u r n a l i s t of the C o m m u n e , w h o be-
lieved passionately in a n d a r g u e d f o r c e f u l l y f o r s w e e p i n g social c h a n g e ;
Elizabeth Dmietrieff, w h o f o u n d e d and led the U n i o n des Femmes; and
Louise Michel, w h o f o u g h t for the C o m m u n e f r o m b e g i n n i n g to end, be-
c o m i n g in t h e process the f a m o u s "Red Virgin" of France. A f o u r t h , Celine
d e M a z a d e , a y o u n g b o u r g e o i s e w h o r e m a i n e d in Paris to k e e p h e r fami-
ly's b u s i n e s s a f l o a t , o p p o s e d t h e C o m m u n e . A f i f t h , A u g u s t i n e - M e l v i n e
B l a n c h e c o t t e , a p a c i f i s t d i s m a y e d by t h e c o n f l i c t , t r i e d t o r e m a i n n e u t r a l .
A m o r e c o m p l e x view o f t h e C o m m u n e ' s w o m e n e m e r g e s f r o m t h e s e
w r i t i n g s t h a n f r o m t h e g e n e r a l l i t e r a t u r e , e s p e c i a l l y t h e a n t i - C o m m u n e lit-
e r a t u r e , b u t w o m e n ' s u n d e r s t a n d i n g a n d p r e s e n t a t i o n of themselves ( a n d
o t h e r w o m e n ) w e r e i n f l u e n c e d , n o n e t h e l e s s , by t h e s a m e l e x i c o n of f e m a l e
types a n d c o n c e p t u a l i z a t i o n s of f e m i n i n i t y e v i d e n t in m e n ' s r e p r e s e n t a t i o n
of t h e m .
T h e writings t h a t f o r m t h e basis f o r this c h a p t e r , c a n by n o m e a n s b e re-
g a r d e d as p r e s e n t i n g t h e e n t i r e r a n g e o f w o m e n ' s e x p e r i e n c e s a n d views.
B u t they give u s s o m e access t o t h e c u l t u r a l i m a g e s a n d values w o m e n u s e d
120
The Femm.es Fortes of Paris J43
t o o r g a n i z e , j u s t i f y , a n d m a k e s e n s e o u t o f t h e i r e x p e r i e n c e s . T h e y a l s o re-
v e a l s o m e w o m e n ' s j u d g m e n t s o f t h e C o m m u n e a n d its s u p p o r t e r s a n d t h e
g e n d e r conceptualizations that i n f o r m e d a n d limited their actions. T h e
c h a p t e r ' s t i t l e c o m e s f r o m C e l i n e d e M a z a d e ' s i d e n t i f i c a t i o n o f h e r s e l f as
a femme forte ( a s t r o n g w o m a n ) . 1 S h e c l a i m e d t h e i d e n t i t y l i g h t l y as a r e a s -
s u r a n c e to h e r h u s b a n d w h o was w o r r i e d a b o u t h e r r e m a i n i n g in Paris
w h e n h e c o u l d n o t . It e x p r e s s e s , h o w e v e r , t h e w a y m a n y P a r i s i a n w o m e n
saw t h e m s e l v e s d u r i n g t h i s p e r i o d . T h e y e n d u r e d a n d p e r s e v e r e d a n d , t o
t h e s u r p r i s e o f s o m e , t h r i v e d as t h e y c o p e d w i t h t h e s e c o n d s i e g e o f P a r i s .
Anonymous Appeals
T h r o u g h o u t the C o m m u n e , announcements and appeals placarded the

city's walls a n d a p p e a r e d i n its n e w s p a p e r s . M o s t w e r e d i r e c t e d t o w a r d
m e n , b u t s o m e u r g e d w o m e n to take action of o n e sort o r a n o t h e r . S o m e
of t h e a p p e a l s to w o m e n w e r e s i g n e d by r e p r e s e n t a t i v e s of o r g a n i z a t i o n s
(usually t h e U n i o n d e s F e m m e s ; o t h e r s w e r e written anonymously. T h e au-
t h o r s h i p o f t h e a n o n y m o u s a p p e a l s is, o f c o u r s e , i m p o s s i b l e t o d e t e r m i n e .
S o m e o r all o f t h e m m i g h t h a v e b e e n w r i t t e n b y m e n r a t h e r t h a n w o m e n .
B u t m e n o n b o t h sides of this conflict d e m o n s t r a t e d n o r e l u c t a n c e to ad-
vise w o m e n o p e n l y o n w h a t t h e y s h o u l d a n d s h o u l d n o t d o . N o r is t h e r e
a n y e v i d e n c e t h a t t h e a n o n y m o u s a p p e a l s w e r e w r i t t e n b y m e n . I h a v e as-
sumed, therefore, that a n o n y m o u s authors w h o e x h o r t e d w o m e n to act
were women.
T h e f i r s t a n o n y m o u s f e m a l e - a u t h o r e d a r t i c l e a p p e a r e d i n t h e Cri du Pe-
uple o n A p r i l 4 , t h e t h i r d d a y o f f i g h t i n g b e t w e e n V e r s a i l l e s a n d P a r i s . T h e
w r i t e r , une veritable citoyenne (a real w o m a n citizen), called u p o n w o m e n
"of all c l a s s e s " t o g o t o V e r s a i l l e s t o e x p l a i n " w h a t t h e R e v o l u t i o n o f P a r i s
is a b o u t " a n d t o m a k e "a f i n a l a t t e m p t a t r e c o n c i l i a t i o n " b e t w e e n the
cities. T h e veritable citoyenne u r g e d p e a c e n o t b e c a u s e she was a political
n e u t r a l . S h e w a s a c o m m u n a r d e . F o r h e r , t h e g u i l t o f V e r s a i l l e s a n d t h e in-
n o c e n c e o f P a r i s w e r e b e y o n d q u e s t i o n . V e r s a i l l e s h a d " s l a n d e r e d , " "be-
t r a y e d , " a n d " t r i e d t o d i s a r m P a r i s b y s u r p r i s e . " I n r e s p o n s e , t h e city h a d
c r e a t e d t h e C o m m u n e b e c a u s e it w a n t e d " t o r e m a i n f r e e . " F a r f r o m b e i n g
t h e aggressor in this conflict, Paris h a d a c t e d only to " d e f e n d h e r s e l f '
against attack.2
D e s p i t e its c r i m e s , Versailles, t h e veritable citoyenne b e l i e v e d , m i g h t b e sus-
c e p t i b l e t o p e r s u a s i o n . If it w e r e p r e s e n t e d w i t h t h e t r u t h a b o u t t h e C o m -
m u n e , s u r e l y it w o u l d a b a n d o n its a t t a c k o n t h e city. E v e n if it n o w m e n d -
e d its ways, h o w e v e r , t h e w r i t e r b e l i e v e d t h e a g g r e s s o r m u s t b e held
r e s p o n s i b l e "for t h e b l o o d of o u r b r o t h e r s , . . . a n d f o r o u r b r e a v e m e n t . " 3
H o w Versailles was to b e h e l d r e s p o n s i b l e was u n c l e a r .
T w o d a y s later, w h e n t h e first c e r e m o n i a l f u n e r a l f o r f a l l e n g u a r d s m e n
w a s h e l d , a l o n g e r a r t i c l e , s i g n e d b y une vraie citoyenne ( a t r u e w o m a n citi-
zen), a p p e a r e d in the same newspaper. Despite t h e c h a n g e in t h e writer's
n o m d e p l u m e , t h e two p i e c e s m a y h a v e b e e n w r i t t e n by t h e s a m e p e r s o n .
At t h e very least, t h e writers s e e m to h a v e b e e n in c o m m u n i c a t i o n with
e a c h o t h e r . T h e vraie citoyenne a c k n o w l e d g e d t h a t t h e m i l i t a r y v i c t o r i e s o f
Versailles h a d d e s t r o y e d any h o p e of r e c o n c i l i a t i o n b e t w e e n t h e C o m m u n e
a n d t h e g o v e r n m e n t o f F r a n c e . "We w o u l d h a v e g o n e t o V e r s a i l l e s , " s h e
w r o t e . "We w o u l d h a v e s t o p p e d t h e s h e d d i n g o f b l o o d We would have
c a r r i e d t h e g r i e v a n c e s of o u r f a t h e r s , h u s b a n d s , a n d c h i l d r e n t o Versailles."
B u t "the g o v e r n m e n t has a t t a c k e d Paris, b l o o d h a s flowed," a n d a mission
of "conciliation a n d h u m a n i t y " was n o l o n g e r possible. So s h e issued a n e w
appeal. W o m e n s h o u l d r e t u r n to their families, o r g a n i z e aid stations, en-
courage the National Guard, and care for the wounded. They should not
e n g a g e in f u r t h e r d e m o n s t r a t i o n s , for these m i g h t " i m p e d e the m o v e m e n t
o f t h e t r o o p s a n d t h e o r d e r s o f t h e C o m m u n e . " B u t if t h e t i m e f o r d e m o n -
strations a n d reconciliation h a d passed, the time for j u d g m e n t h a d not.
L i k e t h e vmtable citoyenne, t h e vraie citoyenne h e l d t h e g o v e r n m e n t o f Ver-
sailles r e s p o n s i b l e f o r t h e " s p i l l i n g o f b l o o d " a n d p r a i s e d t h e C o m m u n e
f o r its " c a l m a n d s e r i o u s " d e c i s i o n s a n d " h u m a n e " a c t i o n s . 4
T h e g e n d e r divisions a n d political j u d g m e n t s of t h e two s t a t e m e n t s a r e
identical. B o t h writers a p p e a l e d only to w o m e n ; they m a d e n o a t t e m p t to
speak to o r f o r m e n . P e a c e m a k i n g o r "conciliation" was w o m e n ' s p e c u l i a r
m i s s i o n ; war, i n a s e n s e , w a s m e n ' s . If p e a c e m a k i n g f a i l e d , as it h a d i n t h i s
case, they believed m e n s h o u l d fight a n d w o m e n should care for the
w o u n d e d . T h e r e is n o h i n t i n e i t h e r a p p e a l t h a t w o m e n s h o u l d t a k e u p
a r m s a n d j o i n m e n i n t h e city's d e f e n s e . B u t if w o m e n c o u l d n o t s t o p t h e
w a r o r e v e n p a r t i c i p a t e i n it, t h e y c o u l d p a s s j u d g m e n t o n it a n d its insti-
gators. ( T h e very n o t i o n t h a t p e a c e was p r e f e r a b l e to w a r involved m o r a l
j u d g m e n t . ) B o t h writers believed firmly in w o m e n ' s right to j u d g e m e n ' s
a c t i o n s , a n d w h e n t h e y d i d so, t h e y n o l o n g e r saw t h e m s e l v e s as s p e a k i n g
t o a n d f o r w o m e n a l o n e . I n a n i n t e r e s t i n g u s e a n d r e v e r s a l o f f e m a l e alle-
g o r y , t h e y saw t h e m s e l v e s , if n o t as t h e n a t i o n , a t l e a s t as its m o r a l c o n -
s c i e n c e . " B e f o r e o u r h e a r t s a n d b e f o r e all o f F r a n c e , " t h e vraie citoyenne d e -
c l a r e d , "we will h o l d t h e g o v e r n m e n t o f V e r s a i l l e s r e s p o n s i b l e f o r [its
actions]."5
T h e r e w e r e n o s h a d e s of gray in t h e s e w o m e n ' s a s s i g n m e n t of culpabil-
ity. V e r s a i l l e s h a d s i g n e d t h e t r e a t y t h a t a l l o w e d t h e t r i u m p h a l m a r c h o f t h e
P r u s s i a n s t h r o u g h Paris, h a d a u t h o r i z e d t h e secret a t t e m p t to r e m o v e t h e
c a n n o n s o n M a r c h 18, h a d s l a n d e r e d P a r i s f o r t h e d e a t h s o f t h e g e n e r a l s ,
a n d h a d a t t a c k e d t h e city. 6 It w a s t h u s g u i l t y o f b e t r a y a l , s l a n d e r , a t t a c k , a n d
t h e killing of F r e n c h m e n . T h e C o m m u n e , in contrast, h a d e s t a b l i s h e d "an
h o n e s t a n d simple g o v e r n m e n t . . . a g o v e r n m e n t of f r e e d o m a n d work that
will c o n v e y , as s o o n as p o s s i b l e , a little w e l l - b e i n g t o all i n d i g e n t s . " 7 G u i l t y
of n o t h i n g , Paris was t h e r e p o s i t o r y of honesty, self-defense, f r e e d o m , a n d
work.
Five d a y s l a t e r ( A p r i l 11), a n g r i e r a n d m o r e a g g r e s s i v e f e m a l e v o i c e s
were raised in t h e C o m m u n e n e w s p a p e r s . A n a n o n y m o u s groupe des
citoyennes ( g r o u p of f e m a l e citizens), w h o w o u l d b e c o m e t h e f o u n d e r s of
the U n i o n des F e m m e s a n d whose identities can therefore b e guessed
at b u t n o t precisely d e t e r m i n e d , issued a n a p p e a l to w o m e n that m o v e d
b e y o n d reconciliation a n d care of the w o u n d e d to revenge a n d a r m e d
d e f e n s e o f t h e city. L i k e t h e veritable a n d vraie citoyennes, these w o m e n
c l a i m e d t h e r i g h t to s p e a k o n t h e basis of t h e i r w o m a n h o o d , i d e n t i f y i n g
t h e m s e l v e s as t h e " m o t h e r s , wives a n d sisters o f t h e F r e n c h p e o p l e . " T h e y
also s p o k e only to w o m e n a n d n o t to m e n ( a l t h o u g h they s p o k e at l e n g t h
a b o u t m e n ) , a n d they a p p e a l e d to w o m e n ' s fears f o r their children, broth-
e r s , a n d h u s b a n d s . U n l i k e t h e veritable a n d vraie citoyennes, however, they
p l a c e d t h e i r a p p e a l in a l o n g e r historical c o n t e x t t h a n t h e c u r r e n t revolu-
t i o n , a p p e a l i n g t o w o m e n as " t h e d e s c e n d a n t s o f t h e w o m e n o f t h e g r a n d
Revolution."8
Like the real a n d t r u e citoyennes, these w o m e n believed that they h a d

t h e r i g h t t o j u d g e t h e c o n f l i c t b e t w e e n P a r i s a n d Versailles, b u t t h e i r j u d g -
ments were harsher a n d m o r e ideological than those expressed o n the
f o u r t h a n d s i x t h . T h e V e r s a i l l e s g o v e r n m e n t w a s n o t j u s t t h e g u i l t y p a r t y ; it
w a s t h e e n e m y o f t h e p e o p l e o f P a r i s . It h a d e x p l o i t e d , o p p r e s s e d , a n d ex-
e c u t e d t h e p e o p l e a n d f o r c e d t h e m t o w o r k w i t h o u t j u s t c o m p e n s a t i o n ; it
h a d i n i t i a t e d a f r a t r i c i d a l civil w a r ; a n d it h a d e x e c u t e d its p r i s o n e r s o f war.
T h e l a n g u a g e o f t h e s e c i t o y e n n e s w a s h a r s h . T h e Versaillais w e r e "assassins
of t h e p e o p l e , . . . o p p r e s s o r s , w h o w a n t to a n n i h i l a t e Paris." T h e C o m -
m u n e , o n t h e o t h e r h a n d , w a s t h e c h a m p i o n o f liberty, e q u a l i t y , a n d f r a -
t e r n i t y ( t h e i d e a l s o f t h e R e v o l u t i o n o f 1 7 8 9 ) . It w a n t e d " g o v e r n m e n t o f
t h e p e o p l e [ a n d ] by t h e p e o p l e , " t h e e n d of e x p l o i t e r s a n d masters, a n d
" w o r k a n d w e l l - b e i n g f o r e v e r y o n e . " "All civilized p e o p l e , " t h e y d e c l a r e d ,
a r e w a t c h i n g t o s e e if f r e e d o m will f i n a l l y t r i u m p h a g a i n s t o p p r e s s i o n i n
Paris, so they c a n "free themselves in t h e i r t u r n . " 9
C e n t r a l t o t h e g r o u p ' s a n a l y s i s o f t h e w a r w a s its a n a l y s i s o f class c o n f l i c t .
U n l i k e t h e veritable-and vraie citoyennes w h o a p p e a l e d t o " w o m e n o f all class-
es," t h e groupe des citoyennes saw t h e civil w a r b e t w e e n P a r i s a n d Versailles as
p a r t o f a l o n g s t r u g g l e b e t w e e n t h e r i c h a n d t h e p o o r . T h e Versaillais w e r e
1
j^2 Unruly Women of Paris
n o t j u s t g u i l t y o f b e t r a y i n g P a r i s ; t h e y w e r e " t h e p r i v i l e g e d . . . w h o h a v e al-
ways lived o n [ t h e p e o p l e ' s ] s w e a t a n d g r o w n f a t o n [ t h e p e o p l e ' s ] m i s e r y . "
I n t h e i r eyes, t h e w a r w a s " t h e final a c t o f t h e e t e r n a l a n t a g o n i s m b e t w e e n
right and might, between work and exploitation, between the people and
its e x e c u t i o n e r s ! " A m o n g t h e m o s t i m p o r t a n t P a r i s i a n d e m a n d s w e r e t h e
right to work a n d t h e workers' right to t h e p r o d u c t of their labor.10 To t h e
w o m e n w h o m a d e t h i s analysis, a n y a p p e a l t o t h e w o m e n o f all c l a s s e s
w o u l d have s e e m e d idiotic.
A p p e a l s f o r conciliation s e e m e d equally nonsensical. In s h a r p distinc-
t i o n t o t h e veritable a n d vraie citoyennes, t h e groupe des citoyennes called o n
w o m e n n o t t o c a r e f o r t h e w o u n d e d b u t t o p r e p a r e t o fight a n d d i e . T h e y
w a n t e d r e v e n g e , n o t r e c o n c i l i a t i o n ; v i c t o r y , n o t p e a c e . " C i t o y e n n e s , res-
o l u t e , u n i t e d , w a t c h i n g o v e r t h e s a f e t y o f o u r c a u s e , " t h e y c r i e d , "let u s p r e -
p a r e to d e f e n d a n d to r e v e n g e o u r b r o t h e r s ! At t h e gates of Paris, o n t h e
b a r r i c a d e s , in t h e f a u b o u r g s , n o m a t t e r w h e r e , we m u s t b e p r e p a r e d to j o i n
o u r e f f o r t s to theirs at t h e r i g h t m o m e n t . " D e f e n s e of t h e C o m m u n e was
t h e i m p o r t a n t t h i n g , b u t if V e r s a i l l e s c h o s e t o t u r n its g u n s a g a i n s t i n n o -
c e n t w o m e n , t h e i r d e a t h s m i g h t s e r v e a g r e a t s y m b o l i c g o o d . "If t h e i n f a -
m o u s o n e s w h o shoot the prisoners a n d assassinate o u r leaders t u r n their
m a c h i n e g u n s a g a i n s t a c r o w d o f u n a r m e d w o m e n , so m u c h t h e b e t t e r !
T h e c r y o f h o r r o r a n d i n d i g n a t i o n f r o m F r a n c e a n d t h e w o r l d will a c h i e v e
w h a t we have wanted!" B u t such i n n o c e n c e a n d m a r t y r d o m were n o t what
t h e y a d v o c a t e d ; t h e y w a n t e d w o m e n t o fight w i t h w h a t e v e r w e a p o n s c a m e
to h a n d — g u n s , bayonets, o r even paving stones.11
A l t h o u g h t h i s call t o a r m s w a s t h e d i r e c t o p p o s i t e o f t h e calls t o c o n c i l i -
a t i o n , s i m i l a r c o n c e p t i o n s o f g e n d e r u n d e r l a y t h e e x h o r t a t i o n s . All t h e
w r i t e r s i d e n t i f i e d t h e m s e l v e s as c i t i z e n s , b u t t h e y b a s e d t h e i r a p p e a l s n o t
o n citizenship b u t o n their s h a r e d gender. W h e t h e r they u r g e d w o m e n to
take u p a r m s , to c a r e f o r t h e w o u n d e d , o r to w o r k f o r conciliation, t h e ba-
sis o n w h i c h t h e y u r g e d t h e m t o a c t w a s t h e s a m e : it w a s t h e i r d u t y as
w o m e n t o save as m a n y m e n ( t h e i r b r o t h e r s , h u s b a n d s , a n d s o n s ) as p o s -
sible. B e c a u s e w o m e n c a r e d a b o u t m e n (as a d u l t s a n d c h i l d r e n ) , n o t b e -
c a u s e t h e y w e r e l i k e m e n , t h e y w o u l d h a v e t o a c t l i k e t h e m . T h e groupe des
citoyennes p u t it t h i s way: w h e n m o t h e r s a n d wives r e a l i z e t h a t " t h e o n l y way
t o save t h o s e w h o a r e d e a r t o t h e m — t h e h u s b a n d w h o s u p p o r t s t h e m , t h e
c h i l d in w h i c h they p l a c e t h e i r h o p e s — i s to take a n active p a r t in t h e bat-
t l e , " t h e y will d o s o . 1 2
All t h e w r i t e r s saw t h e i d e o l o g i c a l u s e s a n d m o r a l a u t h o r i t y o f t h e u n -
a r m e d w o m a n . T h e veritable citoyenne b e l i e v e d w o m e n ( b y d e f i n i t i o n u n -
a r m e d ) c o u l d e n g a g e i n m o r a l s u a s i o n ; t h e vraie citoyenne, that they were
t h e n a t i o n ' s c o n s c i e n c e ; t h e groupe des citoyennes, t h a t t h e d e a t h s of u n -
a r m e d w o m e n w o u l d c r e a t e a n o u t c r y o f " h o r r o r a n d i n d i g n a t i o n . " 1 3 All

t h e s e p r o p o s a l s w e r e b a s e d i n t h e c u l t u r a l d e s i g n a t i o n o f m e n as t h e d e -
f e n d e r s of w o m e n . W h e r e t h e writers d i f f e r e d was o n w h e t h e r w o m e n
s h o u l d c r o s s t h e g e n d e r l i n e a n d t a k e u p a r m s t h e m s e l v e s . T h e groupe des
citoyennes t h o u g h t , a t t h e v e r y least, t h a t t h e s u r v i v a l o f t h e C o m m u n e r e -
q u i r e d w o m e n t o c r o s s t h i s g e n d e r l i n e . F o r t h e m t h e c h o i c e w a s t o "win
o r die," a n d w i n n i n g w o u l d necessitate j o i n i n g t h e m e n in c o m b a t . T h e
vraie citoyenne, i n c o n t r a s t , s t a y e d w i t h i n g e n d e r c o n v e n t i o n s b y c a l l i n g o n
w o m e n to care for the w o u n d e d b u t n o t to fight.
Dmietrieff and the Union des Femmes
T h e a p p e a l o f t h e groupe des citoyennes w a s f o l l o w e d i m m e d i a t e l y b y t h e

a n n o u n c e m e n t of a m e e t i n g , at w h i c h t h e U n i o n d e s F e m m e s was created.
T h e l e a d i n g f o r c e b e h i n d this o r g a n i z a t i o n was Elizabeth Dmietrieff, a
y o u n g Russian radical w h o was a f r i e n d of Karl M a r x a n d a m e m b e r of t h e
International Working M e n ' s Association. T h e U n i o n des F e m m e s would
f u n c t i o n as t h e w o m e n ' s s e c t i o n o f t h e F r e n c h b r a n c h o f t h e I n t e r n a t i o n -
al a n d w o u l d w i n c o n s i d e r a b l e a t t e n t i o n f r o m t h e n a t i o n a l g o v e r n m e n t
o n c e t h e C o m m u n e was d e f e a t e d . 1 4
T h e U n i o n d e s F e m m e s always s p o k e w i t h a c o l l e c t i v e v o i c e , b u t D m i -
t r i e f f ' s i d e a s a n d i n f l u e n c e c a n b e s e e n i n its p u b l i c s t a t e m e n t s , w h i c h
w e r e m o r e c o n c r e t e in t h e i r d e m a n d s , m o r e f e m i n i s t in t h e i r ideology, a n d
m o r e i d e o l o g i c a l i n t h e i r view o f t h e C o m m u n e t h a n t h e e a r l i e r a n o n y -
m o u s a p p e a l s t o w o m e n . T h e u n i o n ' s first p u b l i c s t a t e m e n t a p p e a r e d o n
A p r i l 1 4 i n t h e Journal Officiel. F o r D m i e t r i e f f a n d t h e U n i o n d e s F e m m e s ,
t h e C o m m u n e r e p r e s e n t e d " t h e e x t i n c t i o n o f all p r i v i l e g e a n d i n e q u a l i t y , "
t h e " e n d o f c o r r u p t i o n , " t h e " r e g e n e r a t i o n o f society," a n d " t h e r u l e o f la-
b o r a n d j u s t i c e . " By i m p l i c a t i o n , t h e V e r s a i l l e s g o v e r n m e n t r e p r e s e n t e d t h e
o p p o s i t e values: privilege, inequality, c o r r u p t i o n , t h e d e n i g r a t i o n of labor,
a n d i n j u s t i c e . T h i s s t r u g g l e b e t w e e n g o o d a n d evil c o u l d n o t b e r e c o n c i l e d .
In l a n g u a g e t h a t r e v e r b e r a t e d with religious i m a g e r y — t h e b a t t l e of Jeri-
c h o ( " d a n g e r is i m m i n e n t a n d t h e e n e m y is a t t h e g a t e s o f P a r i s " ) , s a c r e d
c a u s e s ("it is t h e d u t y a n d t h e r i g h t o f e v e r y o n e t o fight f o r t h e s a c r e d c a u s e
of t h e p e o p l e " ) a n d apocalyptic struggle ("to p u t a n e n d to c o r r u p t i o n a n d
ultimately to regenerate society")—the U n i o n des F e m m e s u r g e d w o m e n
to p r e p a r e to "fight to the finish."15
In c o n c e p t u a l i z i n g g e n d e r , t h e s t a t e m e n t w e n t well b e y o n d t h e t h i n k i n g
of the veritable and vraie citoyennes and the groupe des citoyennes. From its
o p e n i n g s e n t e n c e , t h e U n i o n d e s F e m m e s m o v e d away f r o m j u s t i f y i n g
j^2 Unruly Women of Paris
w o m e n ' s s u p p o r t of t h e C o m m u n e o n t h e basis of t h e i r r e l a t i o n s h i p s with

m e n - t h e y j u s t i f i e d it, i n d e e d d e m a n d e d it, o n t h e b a s i s o f m e n s a n d
w o m e n ' s c o m m o n i n t e r e s t i n t h e o u t c o m e of t h e s t r u g g l e . W o m e n , as in-
d i v i d u a l s , n o t o n l y h a d a r i g h t t o j o i n i n t h e f i g h t i n g b u t h a d as m u c h a t
s t a k e i n t h e o u t c o m e o f t h e s t r u g g l e a s m e n d i d . I t w a s as m u c h t h e i r sa-
c r e d c a u s e " a s it w a s m e n ' s . I t w a s " t h e d u t y a n d t h e r i g h t o f e v e r y o n e " t o
defend the revolution.16

Elizabeth Dmietrieff a n d t h e o t h e r seven signers of the article did n o t
s p e a k to w o m e n , a s p r e v i o u s w r i t e r s h a d , b u t / o r w o m e n a n d to t h e l e a d e r s
of t h e C o m m u n e , d e c l a r i n g w o m e n ' s i n t e r e s t s in t h e C o m m u n e a n d t h e i r
right to b e h e a r d . W o m e n h a d grievances too, they asserted, d e p a r t i n g
f r o m t h e vraie citoyenne, w h o u r g e d w o m e n t o c a r r y m e n ' s g r i e v a n c e s t o V e r -
sailles as t h o u g h w o m e n h a d n o g r i e v a n c e s o f t h e i r o w n . V e r s a i l l e s h a d dis-
c r i m i n a t e d a g a i n s t w o m e n "as a m e a n s o f m a i n t a i n i n g t h e p r i v i l e g e s o f t h e
r u l i n g classes." Later, in a n u n d a t e d letter to t h e C o m m u n e ' s C o m m i s s i o n
on Labor and Exchange, Elizabeth Dmietrieff, signing for the Executive
C o m m i s s i o n of t h e U n i o n d e s F e m m e s C e n t r a l C o m m i t t e e , clarified t h e
n a t u r e of t h e d i s c r i m i n a t i o n w o m e n h a d s u f f e r e d . " T h e w o r k of w o m e n
w a s t h e m o s t e x p l o i t e d o f all i n t h e s o c i a l o r d e r o f t h e p a s t , " s h e w r o t e , a n d
"its i m m e d i a t e r e o r g a n i z a t i o n is u r g e n t . " I n a d d i t i o n t o o t h e r r e f o r m s m
t h e o r g a n i z a t i o n a n d d u r a t i o n of work, w h i c h s h e b e l i e v e d w o u l d b e n e f i t
all w o r k e r s , D m i e t r i e f f c a l l e d f o r " t h e e n d o f all c o m p e t i t i o n b e t w e e n m a l e
a n d f e m a l e w o r k e r s " a n d " e q u a l pay f o r e q u a l h o u r s of w o r k " - p r o p o s a l s
that would have increased e m p l o y m e n t and wages for w o m e n .
D m i e t r i e f f was w o r r i e d t h a t t h e "increasing poverty" c r e a t e d by t h e "sup-

pression of w o r k f o r n o a p p a r e n t r e a s o n , " w o u l d p e r s u a d e "the f e m i n i n e
e l e m e n t of t h e Parisian p o p u l a t i o n , r e v o l u t i o n a r y f o r t h e m o m e n t , to re-
t u r n t o t h e passive a n d m o r e o r less r e a c t i o n a r y state t h a t t h e p a s t social
order h a d created for them."18 Dmietrieff's fear may not have b e e n un-
f o u n d e d f o r in t h e late 1790s w o m e n ' s disaffection h a d u n d e r m i n e d t h e
R e v o l u t i o n a n d l e d t o t h e r e o p e n i n g o f c h u r c h e s . 1 9 B u t it r e v e a l s t h e c o n -
s i d e r a b l e e x t e n t to w h i c h e v e n t h e m o s t active a n d a r t i c u l a t e C o m m u n a r d
w o m e n f e a r e d t h e h o l d of t h e p a s t o n w o m e n . S u c h a f e a r was n e v e r ar-
t i c u l a t e d w i t h r e g a r d t o working-class m e n , w h o s e loyalty to t h e C o m m u n e
was a c c e p t e d largely w i t h o u t q u e s t i o n by C o m m u n e leaders, t h e existence
o f d r a f t d o d g e r s n o t w i t h s t a n d i n g . 2 0 T o e n s u r e w o m e n ' s loyalty, D m i e t r i e f f
argued t h e C o m m u n e w o u l d have to e n s u r e w o r k a n d j u s t i c e for every-
one To that end, she thought the Union des F e m m e s should reorganize
t h e d i s t r i b u t e w o r k to t h e w o m e n of P a r i s r b e g i n n i n g with t h e m a n u f a c t u r e
of military supplies. T h e C o m m u n e ' s c o n t r i b u t i o n to this p l a n w o u l d b e to
f u n d the r e o p e n i n g of a b a n d o n e d factories a n d w o r k s h o p s that h a d

marily e m p l o y e d w o m e n .
A Public Disagreement
I n A p r i l t h e d i f f e r e n c e s i n t h e s e calls t o a c t i o n m i g h t h a v e b e e n i n t e r -
p r e t e d as t h e p r o g r e s s i v e r a d i c a l i z a t i o n a n d p o l i t i c i z a t i o n o f w o m e n ' s
t h o u g h t s o n t h e C o m m u n e a n d w h a t t h e i r r o l e in it s h o u l d b e . I n M a y it
b e c a m e c l e a r t h a t t h e y w e r e e v i d e n c e o f c o n f l i c t i n g f e m a l e views, w h e n a
s e c o n d a n o n y m o u s groupe de citoyennes p l a c a r d e d t h e walls o f P a r i s w i t h a
call f o r a n a r m i s t i c e . T h e y s p o k e , t h e y s a i d , "in t h e n a m e o f t h e c o u n t r y , i n
t h e n a m e o f h o n o r , e v e n i n t h e n a m e o f h u m a n i t y , " a n d f o r w o m e n . "All
w o m e n , " they declared, "those w h o have small c h i l d r e n w h o m t h e b o m b s
c a n f i n d i n t h e i r c r a d l e s , t h o s e w h o s e h u s b a n d s fight o u t o f c o n v i c t i o n
t h o s e w h o s e h u s b a n d s o r sons e a r n their daily b r e a d o n t h e r a m p a r t s , t h o s e
w h o today g u a r d t h e i r h o m e s a l o n e , . . . wish f o r P e a c e ! P e a c e ! " ( A m b u -
lancieres, cantinieres, a n d c o m m u n a r d e s w h o h a d taken u p a r m s a n d
m i g h t n o t have w a n t e d p e a c e at a n y cost a r e n o t a b l y m i s s i n g f r o m this
litany.) T h e r e q u e s t w a s a s u p p l i c a t i o n , n o t a d e m a n d . T h i s g r o u p c l a i m e d
t h e r i g h t to s p e a k o n t h e basis of t h e i r " c o u r a g e o u s r e s i g n a t i o n , " n o t t h e i r
activism. T h e y w e r e "weary of s u f f e r i n g " a n d " a p p a l l e d at t h e m i s f o r t u n e "
that threatened t h e m again. They wanted to protect their children a n d
t h e i r h u s b a n d s . T h e y w a n t e d a n e n d t o t h e war, n o t a v i c t o r y . 2 1
T h i s call f o r p e a c e r e s e m b l e s t h a t o f t h e veritable citoyenne w h o w r o t e t h e

call f o r r e c o n c i l i a t i o n p u b l i s h e d o n A p r i l 4 . T h e veritable citoyenne appealed
t o " t h e w o m e n o f all classes"; t h e g r o u p w r o t e o n b e h a l f o f " t h e w o m e n o f
P a n s . " B o t h a p p e a l s p r e s e n t e d w o m e n as u n i t e d a c r o s s class if n o t a c r o s s
g e o g r a p h i c a l lines. B o t h c o n j u r e d u p i m a g e s of d e a d m e n a n d grieving
w o m e n . Both a s s u m e d a n d a c c e p t e d a g e n d e r hierarchy, s p e a k i n g o u t of
t h e i r c o n c e r n f o r m e n , n o t as t h e i r e q u a l s . B o t h s o u g h t a n i m m e d i a t e e n d
t o t h e b l o o d s h e d a n d r e c o n c i l i a t i o n b e t w e e n P a r i s a n d Versailles.
B u t t h e r e a r e s i g n i f i c a n t d i f f e r e n c e s b e t w e e n t h e s t a t e m e n t s as well. T h e
veritable citoyenne w h o w r o t e i n A p r i l w a s a c o m m u n a r d e , a n d s h e b l a m e d
Versailles f o r t h e s t r i f e . S h e c o n s i d e r e d w o m e n c a p a b l e o f l o g i c a l a n d p e r -
suasive r e a s o n i n g , a b l e t o p e r s u a d e t h e V e r s a i l l e s g o v e r n m e n t t h a t it was
responsible for the bloodshed a n d s h o u l d r e c o n c i l e with Paris. The
c i t o y e n n e s w h o w r o t e o n May 3 t o o k n o side a n d cast n o b l a m e . T h e y ap-
p e a l e d t o b o t h V e r s a i l l e s a n d P a r i s t o lay d o w n t h e i r a r m s . A l t h o u g h t h e y
a r g u e d a case f o r peace, they h o p e d to c h a n g e t h e "hearts," n o t the minds,
of t h e a n t a g o n i s t s . T h e i r a p p e a l was t o t h e " g e n e r o s i t y , " n o t t h e intelli-

g e n c e , o f t h e two sides. R e g a r d l e s s of t h e issues a n d c a u s e s o f t h e war, t h e y
a s k e d t h e m e n t o s t o p f i g h t i n g , essentially as a g i f t t o t h e w o m e n , w h o w e r e
frightened for their husbands and children.
T h e U n i o n d e s F e m m e s was a p p a l l e d . T w o days later, it t o o p l a c a r d e d
t h e city. T h e u n i o n was b a r e l y a b l e t o c o n t r o l its o u t r a g e a t t h e " a n o n y m o u s
g r o u p of r e a c t i o n a r y w o m e n " w h o h a d written such a "shocking procla-
m a t i o n . " I n c o n t r a s t t o t h e c i t o y e n n e s w h o h a d s p o k e n i n t h e n a m e of
" c o u n t r y , h o n o r , a n d h u m a n i t y , " t h e u n i o n s p o k e i n t h e n a m e o f " t h e so-
cial r e v o l u t i o n , t h e r i g h t t o w o r k , a n d e q u a l i t y a n d j u s t i c e , " socialist re-
publican principles that immediately indicated their c o m m i t m e n t to the
C o m m u n e . Sliding into sarcasm, the U n i o n des F e m m e s d e n o u n c e d the
s e l f - c o n t r a d i c t i o n s in t h e p r o p o s a l . T h e g e n e r o s i t y o f Versailles was t h e
" g e n e r o s i t y o f c o w a r d l y assassins"; c o n c i l i a t i o n b e t w e e n t h e two s i d e s
would be the "conciliation between f r e e d o m a n d despotism." T h e r e could
b e n o c o m p r o m i s e . A n e g o t i a t e d p e a c e w o u l d b e t h e equivalent of d e f e a t .
It w o u l d d e s t r o y t h e w o r k e r s ' h o p e s f o r " c o m p l e t e social t r a n s f o r m a t i o n ,
. . . f o r t h e s u p p r e s s i o n o f all p r i v i l e g e s a n d e x p l o i t a t i o n , f o r t h e s u b s t i t u -
t i o n of t h e r e i g n o f w o r k f o r t h e r e i g n o f c a p i t a l . " I n s h o r t , it w o u l d b e "trea-
son."22
As it h a d o n A p r i l 14, t h e U n i o n d e s F e m m e s s p o k e n o t t o w o m e n b u t
f o r w o m e n . It m a d e n o p r e t e n s e , h o w e v e r , o f s p e a k i n g f o r all w o m e n .
T h e s e w o m e n ' s i d e n t i f i c a t i o n was w i t h " t h e w o r k i n g w o m e n o f P a r i s . " T h e y
w e r e n o t pacifists; t h e y w a n t e d victory. " T h e t o r r e n t s o f b l o o d s h e d f o r t h e
c a u s e of liberty," t h e u n i o n d e c l a r e d , e n t i t l e d t h e p e o p l e (by w h i c h it
m e a n t t h e w o r k e r s ) of P a r i s t o " g l o r y a n d v e n g e a n c e . " R e f u s i n g t o a c c e p t
t h e g e n d e r c o n c e p t u a l i z a t i o n s t h a t m a d e t h e m t h e i n f e r i o r supplicants of
m e n , they u r g e d w o m e n to prove that they k n e w h o w to "shed their b l o o d
a n d give t h e i r lives f o r t h e d e f e n s e a n d t r i u m p h of t h e C o m m u n e , " j u s t as
t h e i r b r o t h e r s d i d . I n t h e i r U t o p i a n vision o f t h e "social a n d u n i v e r s a l re-
public," w o r k i n g m e n a n d w o m e n w o u l d b e "joined in solidarity."23
Andre Leo
T h e m o s t p r o m i n e n t i n d i v i d u a l f e m a l e v o i c e in t h e C o m m u n e p r e s s was
A n d r e L e o ' s . U n k n o w n t o s o m e of h e r r e a d e r s , p e r h a p s , b u t well k n o w n t o
o t h e r j o u r n a l i s t s a n d t h e p o l i t i c a l l e a d e r s o f t h e C o m m u n e , A n d r e L e o was
n o t t h e m a n s h e a p p e a r e d t o b e in p r i n t . S h e was L e o d i l e B r e a C h a m p s e i x ,
t h e o n l y f e m a l e j o u r n a l i s t o f t h e C o m m u n e . B o r n i n 1 8 3 2 , m a r r i e d in
1 8 5 1 t o G r e g o i r e C h a m p s e i x , a n d w i d o w e d in 1 8 6 3 , L e o d i l e C h a m p s e i x
was t h e m o t h e r o f twin boys, A n d r e a n d L e o , t h e s o u r c e o f h e r p s e u d o -

nym. 4 She m a r r i e d Benoit Malon, a m e m b e r of the C o m m u n e whose
p r a i s e o f h e r in his h i s t o r y i n d i c a t e d t h e d i f f i c u l t i e s e v e n r a d i c a l m e n h a d
in c a t e g o r i z i n g t h e f e m m e s f o r t e s o f t h e C o m m u n e . " T h i s w o m a n , " M a l o n
w r o t e , " w h o s e n a m e is a m o n g t h o s e o f t h e g r e a t e s t w r i t e r s o f o u r t i m e a n d
w h o m Rossel, w h o k n e w w h a t h e was t a l k i n g a b o u t , c a l l e d 'citoyen' A n d r e
L e o , was e q u a l l y d e v o t e d t o t h e c a u s e o f t h e p e o p l e a n d t o s e r v i n g it w i t h
h e r writings, h e r speeches, a n d h e r total s u p p o r t . " 2 5
L e o b e g a n h e r l i t e r a r y c a r e e r w r i t i n g n o v e l s , b u t by t h e l a t e r y e a r s o f t h e
S e c o n d E m p i r e , she h a d t u r n e d to s p e a k i n g a n d writing a b o u t politics a n d
w o m e n ' s r i g h t s . I n 1 8 6 9 s h e p u b l i s h e d a l o n g p o l i t i c a l essay, Lafemmeet les
moeurs: Liberie on Monarchie, in w h i c h s h e c o n t r a s t e d t h e r e a l i t i e s o f w o m e n ' s
lives, w h i c h n o o n e t a l k e d a b o u t , t o t h e b o u r g e o i s view o f w o m e n T h e re-
ality was g r i m . S h e c i t e d " t h e f r i g h t f u l a n d g r o w i n g n u m b e r o f a b a n d o n e d
c h i l d r e n ; t h e f r i e n d l e s s y o u n g girls [filles delaissees]; t h e p r o s t i t u t e s a n d
c o u r t e s a n s ; t h e w o r k e r s d e b i l i t a t e d by excessive w o r k a n d p o v e r t y ; . the
m o t h e r s o f f a m i l i e s , b e a t e n , e x p l o i t e d , a n d r a p e d by t h e i r h u s b a n d s ; t h e
t r a f f i c m d o w r i e s , in m a r r i a g e ; t h e e x p l o i t a t i o n o f p o o r girls in f r e e
u n i o n s . " T h i s was t h e a c t u a l t r e a t m e n t of t h e w o m e n w h o m b o u r g e o i s m e n
i m a g i n e d to b e "delicate a n d c h a r m i n g , b o r n f o r t h e p l e a s u r e of m e n "
A m o n g o t h e r things, such a fantasy allowed b o u r g e o i s m e n to see t h e m -
selves as " s t r o n g a n d c h i v a l r o u s . " 2 6 L e o ' s o u t r a g e was p a l p a b l e .
L e o was p a r t i c u l a r l y a n g r y a t t h e a d v o c a t e s of d e m o c r a c y w h o " p r o -
c l a i m e d t h a t l i b e r t y was n e c e s s a r y f o r t h e d i g n i t y a n d m o r a l i t y o f h u m a n
b e m g s " a n d yet b e l i e v e d t h a t "to give w o m e n l i b e r t y w o u l d infallibly c r e a t e
a m o n s t e r o f e g o t i s m a n d i n d e c e n c y . " W h a t was a t s t a k e i n t h i s i n c o n s i s -
tency, s h e knew, was t h e p e r p e t u a t i o n o f m a l e - d o m i n a t e d m a r r i a g e M e n
w h o b a d l y w a n t e d t o e n d p o l i t i c a l a n d social h i e r a r c h i e s w a n t e d n o s u c h
c h a n g e in m a r r i a g e . If h u s b a n d a n d w i f e w e r e e q u a l , m e n w o r r i e d w h o
would m a k e decisions? In m a r r i a g e t h e r e h a d to be "one h e a d , o n e direc-
t i o n . " L e o t h o u g h t s u c h a r g u m e n t s w e r e self-serving. N o r c o u l d s h e a c c e p t
the exclusion of w o m e n f r o m t h e f r a n c h i s e a n d o t h e r f o r m s of political
a n d social equality. I n h e r view, w o m e n w e r e slaves, a t w o r k a n d in m a r -
r i a g e , a n d t h e o n l y way t o e n d t h e i r e n s l a v e m e n t ( a n d h e n c e t h e enslave-
m e n t o f t h e i r c h i l d r e n ) was t o e x t e n d e q u a l r i g h t s t o t h e m . O n l y t h e n
c o u l d a t r u l y d e m o c r a t i c society b e a c h i e v e d . 2 7
28
T h e j o u r n a l La Sociale was L e o ' s m a j o r f o r u m d u r i n g t h e C o m m u n e
I n it, s h e c h a m p i o n e d t h e C o m m u n e ' s c a u s e , p r a i s e d t h e m e n w h o d e -
f e n d e d it a g a i n s t Versailles, a n d c r i t i c i z e d its l e a d e r s w h e n e v e r s h e t h o u g h t
they h a d acted foolishly o r injudiciously. In contrast to the a n o n y m o u s
c i t o y e n n e s a n d t h e U n i o n d e s F e m m e s , L e o s p o k e n e i t h e r to n o r f o r
w o m e n . S h e s p o k e t o m e n a n d f o r h e r s e l f . A socialist b u t a m e m b e r o f n o
p a r t i c u l a r f a c t i o n , s h e w a s o n e o f t h e C o m m u n e ' s m o s t i n t e l l i g e n t critics.
S h e was d e e p l y c o n c e r n e d a b o u t t h e failure of t h e C o m m u n e l e a d e r s to
s e e k t h e s u p p o r t o f t h e p r o v i n c e s , 2 9 t o c o n t r o l its m o s t f a n a t i c a l as well as
its m o s t c o n s e r v a t i v e m e m b e r s , a n d t o a c c e p t a n d m o b i l i z e t h e s u p p o r t o f
w o m e n . S h e was c o n v i n c e d t h a t e a c h of t h e s e f a i l u r e s w e a k e n e d t h e C o m -
m u n e ; together, they could lead to defeat.
O f all t h e C o m m u n e j o u r n a l i s t s , o n l y A n d r e L e o a d d r e s s e d t h e s u b j e c t
o f w o m e n . F o r her, t h e C o m m u n e ' s r e j e c t i o n of w o m e n ' s o f f e r s of h e l p was
a m a j o r p r o b l e m b o t h f o r w o m e n a n d f o r t h e success of t h e r e v o l u t i o n . Be-
t w e e n La Sociales f i r s t a n d last i s s u e s ( M a r c h 3 1 a n d M a y 17), s h e w r o t e
f o u r l o n g articles, describing, analyzing, a n d criticizing t h e Commune
leaders' attitudes toward w o m e n . Like Elizabeth Dmietrieff, she feared
t h a t t h e w o r k i n g w o m e n o f P a r i s m i g h t a b a n d o n t h e r e v o l u t i o n if t h e C o m -
m u n e l e a d e r s d i d n o t s e e k t h e i r h e l p a n d if t h e i r v i s i o n o f t h e f u t u r e d i d
not include equal rights for w o m e n .
I n a n A p r i l 12 a r t i c l e t i t l e d " T o u t e s a v e c t o u s " (All w o m e n a n d all m e n
together), Leo introduced the themes that interested her: w o m e n ' s com-
m i t m e n t to t h e r e v o l u t i o n , m e n ' s n a r r o w - m i n d e d r e f u s a l of w o m e n ' s of-
f e r s of h e l p , a n d t h e p o t e n t i a l c o n s e q u e n c e s o f t h e i r o b s t i n a c y . First, s h e
d e c l a r e d , "we s h o u l d r e c o g n i z e t h a t all g r e a t c a u s e s e x c i t e t h e s a m e s e n t i -
m e n t s i n all h u m a n h e a r t s , a n d t h a t u n l e s s t h e y a r e s i m p l e v e g e t a t i v e p h e -
n o m e n a , w o m e n m u s t f e e l t h e s a m e s t r o n g p a s s i o n s as m e n d o i n s u c h m o -
m e n t s . " W o m e n , of c o u r s e , w e r e n o t "simple vegetative p h e n o m e n a , " a n d
t h e i r p a s s i o n f o r t h e r e v o l u t i o n w a s t h e s a m e as m e n ' s . L i k e m e n , t h e y h a d
" n a t u r a l l y " p a r t i c i p a t e d i n t h e d e f e n s e o f P a r i s d u r i n g t h e f i r s t s i e g e , vol-
u n t e e r i n g f o r t h e A m a z o n e s d e la S e i n e e v e n w h e n t h e r e w e r e a l r e a d y am-
p l e n u m b e r s o f t r o o p s t o d e f e n d t h e city. N o w , w o m e n w e r e d e f e n d i n g t h e
barricades alongside m e n . Only fools w o u l d d e n y their c o m m i t m e n t to the
C o m m u n e , a n d t h o s e w h o d i d so r a n t h e risk o f u n d e r m i n i n g it. N o t o n l y
d i d Paris f a c e a s h o r t a g e of soldiers a n d n e e d t h e h e l p o f w o m e n b u t t h o s e
w h o were denying w o m e n t h e right to participate in the C o m m u n e ' s de-
f e n s e w e r e risking t h e possibility t h a t w o m e n w o u l d t u r n against t h e revo-
lution. "Until now," she declared, " d e m o c r a c y has b e e n defeated by
w o m e n , a n d d e m o c r a c y will t r i u m p h o n l y w i t h t h e m . " 3 0
F r o m Leo's perspective, w o m e n ' s detractors were n o t just shortsighted;
t h e y w e r e hypocrites. T h e v e r y m e n w h o h a d c e l e b r a t e d t h e h e r o i s m of
w o m e n in t h e past were ridiculing a n d slandering the w o m e n w h o w a n t e d
to d e f e n d t h e C o m m u n e . I n r e s p o n s e to s u c h hypocrisy, L e o a r g u e d t h a t
m e n a n d w o m e n w e r e e q u a l o n t h e o n l y level t h a t m a t t e r e d , o r s h o u l d m a t -
ter, i n t h e c u r r e n t c i r c u m s t a n c e s : t h e y w e r e w i l l i n g t o s a c r i f i c e t h e m s e l v e s
I
The Femmes Fortes of Paris 131
f o r a g r e a t c a u s e . " E v e r y h u m a n b e i n g h a s a n i n s t i n c t f o r [self-] p r e s e r v a -
t i o n , " s h e w r o t e , " a n d it is n o t a b e a r d , b u t a s u p e r i o r p a s s i o n , t h a t [allows
o n e to] o v e r c o m e this instinct." W o m e n h a d this passion, a n d they were
"suffering f r o m the inaction" that C o m m u n e leaders had imposed u p o n
t h e m . A " h o l y f e v e r " w a s b u r n i n g i n t h e i r h e a r t s . L i k e m e n , t h e y w e r e will-
ing to sacrifice themselves f o r t h e cause.31
L e o d i d n o t say t h a t all w o m e n s h o u l d t a k e u p a r m s . S o m e , s u c h as y o u n g
m o t h e r s w h o n e e d e d to b e by t h e i r c h i l d r e n ' s cradles, clearly c o u l d n o t d o
so. B u t t h e w o m e n w h o w e r e w i l l i n g t o fight s h o u l d n o t b e d e n i e d t h e r i g h t
t o d e f e n d t h e city. M o r e o v e r , t h e N a t i o n a l G u a r d needed w o m e n ' s h e l p , as
a r e c e n t b a t t l e o u t s i d e t h e walls o f P a r i s h a d a m p l y d e m o n s t r a t e d . " T h e
m e n , w h o e n d u r e g r e a t h a r d s h i p in t h e f a c e o f d e a t h , a r e p o o r l y n o u r i s h e d
a n d p o o r l y a i d e d , " s h e w r o t e . " T h e m e d i c a l c a r e f o r t h e w o u n d e d is n e i -
t h e r p r o m p t e n o u g h n o r a b u n d a n t e n o u g h . " T h a t w o m e n w e r e n o t al-
l o w e d t o h e l p t h e t r o o p s w a s d i s g r a c e f u l . "Is it n o t l a m e n t a b l e , " s h e a s k e d
h e r readers, "that these brave m e n , whose h e r o i s m excites o u r a d m i r a t i o n
a n d w h o h a v e t h e r i g h t t o so m u c h r e c o g n i t i o n f r o m us, l a c k e d t h e n e c e s -
sities o f life a t o u r v e r y g a t e s ? Is t h i s t h e way w e h o n o r t h o s e w h o s e r v e
us?"32
T h a t t h e l e a d e r s of t h e C o m m u n e a n d t h e N a t i o n a l G u a r d w e r e re-
s p o n s i b l e f o r t h e p o l i c i e s t h a t e x c l u d e d w o m e n w a s c l e a r . T o t h e m s h e of-
f e r e d b o t h practical advice—they s h o u l d create registers of w o m e n w h o
w e r e w i l l i n g t o h e l p d e f e n d t h e city a n d s u p p o r t t h e t r o o p s — a n d a v i c t o r y
s c e n a r i o — t h e p r e s e n c e o f w o m e n o n t h e b a t t l e f i e l d w o u l d tell t h e Ver-
sailles t r o o p s " t h a t w h a t t h e y h a v e i n f r o n t o f t h e m is n o t a f a c t i o n b u t a
w h o l e p e o p l e , w h o s e c o n s c i e n c e . . . is r a i s e d u p f o r v e n g e a n c e . " A w h o l e
people, m e n a n d w o m e n fighting together, could n o t be defeated, a n d "the
little h i s t o r i a n [ T h i e r s ] w h o a t t a c k s t h e g r e a t city" w o u l d b e f o r c e d t o a d d
a n e w p a r a g r a p h t o h i s h i s t o r y , a p a r a g r a p h t h a t w o u l d say: " T h e r e w a s t h e n
i n P a r i s s u c h a f r e n z y f o r liberty, e q u a l i t y , a n d j u s t i c e t h a t t h e w o m e n
f o u g h t a l o n g s i d e t h e m e n , a n d in t h i s city o f t w o m i l l i o n s o u l s , t h e r e w a s
e n o u g h m o r a l f o r c e a n d e n e r g y t o w i t h s t a n d all t h e r e s t o f F r a n c e a n d t o
d e f e a t t h e material e f f o r t of two a r m i e s . " 3 3
By t h e e n d o f A p r i l , L e o ' s c o m m i t m e n t t o t h e C o m m u n e a n d h e r r e s p e c t
f o r its s o l d i e r s r e m a i n e d u n d i m i n i s h e d , b u t h e r c o n f i d e n c e i n v i c t o r y h a d
b e e n s h a k e n b y t h e d e a t h toll. " E a c h d a y a n d e a c h n i g h t , t h e r a n k s a r e
t h i n n e d , c o m r a d e s fall; . . . t h e m o u t h t h a t c r i e s , 'Vive la R e p u b l i q u e ! ' is
closed a n d stiffened. We see t h e r e m a i n s of f r i e n d s a n d n e i g h b o r s carried
to the cemetery," she wrote, Like h e r m a l e colleagues, she evoked "the
c r i e s o f wives a n d c h i l d r e n " t o c o n v e y t h e t r a g e d y o f t h e s e d e a t h s . B u t s h e
l a u d e d t h e " d e a r a n d n o b l e h e r o e s , s o l d i e r s o f t h e i d e a , p o o r s u b l i m e ar-
t i s a n s , " f o r t h e i r b r a v e r y a n d t h e i r d e v o t i o n t o t h e r e v o l u t i o n . " T h e r e is o n e
r a c e , b e t t e r yet, o n e class," s h e d e c l a r e d , " t h a t r u n s away f r o m p u t r e f a c t i o n
[ w h i c h ] will s p r e a d o u t o v e r t h e w o r l d a n d f o u n d p e a c e b y j u s t i c e a n d
e q u a l i t y . " T h i s class, o f c o u r s e , w a s t h e w o r k i n g c l a s s . 3 4
O n May 6 L e o r e t u r n e d to u p b r a i d i n g t h e m a l e leaders of t h e C o m m u n e
a n d t h e N a t i o n a l G u a r d f o r their hypocrisy, i n g r a t i t u d e , a n d stupidity in
r e j e c t i n g w o m e n ' s h e l p . T h e o c c a s i o n f o r this c r i t i q u e was t h e g u a r d ' s re-
j e c t i o n of t h e services of n i n e a m b u l a n c i e r e s . N o m a t t e r t h a t t h e w o u n d -
e d n e e d e d t h e a m b u l a n c i e r e s . N o m a t t e r t h a t w o m e n like L o u i s e M i c h e l
h a d h e l p e d d e f e n d t h e f o r t o f Issy. N o m a t t e r t h a t t h e N a t i o n a l G u a r d
n e e d e d the services w o m e n could p r o v i d e — " p r e p a r i n g w a r m nutritious
f o o d for o u r m a l n o u r i s h e d combattants," "bringing aid to the w o u n d e d
a n d dying," a n d "work[ing] b e h i n d the barricades, to protect against the
v i o l a t i o n o f t h e city." N o m a t t e r t h a t t h e m e n , t h e t r u e s o l d i e r s o f t h e r e -
public, wanted w o m e n ' s help. O t h e r m e n , "republican m e n , " w h o f o u n d
w o m e n ' s d e f e n s e o f t h e r e p u b l i c "in o t h e r e p o c h s " t o b e "admirable,"
f o u n d t h e i r s u p p o r t of t h e C o m m u n e to b e " i n c o n v e n i e n t a n d ridicu-
lous."35
Warming to the t h e m e she h a d introduced three weeks earlier in
"Toutes avec tous," L e o c o n t r a s t e d "the n a r r o w a n d petty, . . . b o u r g e o i s
a n d a u t h o r i t a r i a n " spirit of t h e revolution's "leaders" to t h e t r u e revolu-
tionary attitude of the laborers a n d artisans w h o u n d e r s t o o d that they were
fighting for t h e rights of e v e r y o n e a n d w e l c o m e d t h e w o m e n ' s efforts. For
t h e m , s h e w r o t e , " t h e p r e s e n c e o f w o m a n is a j o y , a s t r e n g t h . S h e d o u b l e s
h i s c o u r a g e a n d h i s e n t h u s i a s m . . . . [ S h e r e p r e s e n t s ] t h e s o u l o f t h e city
s a y i n g t o t h e s o l d i e r , 'I a m w i t h y o u . Y o u a r e d o i n g w e l l . ' " O n l y t h e C o m -
m u n e l e a d e r s a n d g e n e r a l s , w h o failed to u n d e r s t a n d t h e t r u e n a t u r e of
t h e s t r u g g l e a g a i n s t V e r s a i l l e s , w a n t e d w o m e n t o stay a w a y f r o m t h e b a t -
tlefields.36
T w o d a y s l a t e r , still a n g r y a b o u t t h e N a t i o n a l G u a r d ' s t r e a t m e n t o f t h e
a m b u l a n c i e r e s , L e o e x p l i c a t e d t h e c o n s e q u e n c e s of i g n o r i n g w o m e n in
"La r e v o l u t i o n sans la f e m m e " ( T h e r e v o l u t i o n w i t h o u t w o m a n ) . H a v i n g
n o f e a r o f a u t h o r i t y , i n d e e d , b e i n g c o n t e m p t u o u s o f it, L e o lectured
Jaroslav Dombrowski, the Polish revolutionary w h o was c o m m a n d e r of the
C o m m u n e forces, a b o u t t h e i m p o r t a n c e of w o m e n ' s s u p p o r t . Calling h i m
G e n e r a l D o m b r o w s k i a t f i r s t , L e o q u i c k l y s w i t c h e d t o "citoyen Dombrow-
ski," r e m i n d i n g h i m i n t r u e r e v o l u t i o n a r y style t h a t h e w a s t h e e q u a l , n o t
t h e s u p e r i o r , of t h e p e o p l e h e h a d d i s h o n o r e d . W o m e n , she reminded
h i m , w e r e t h e m a j o r a c t o r s in t h e e v e n t s of M a r c h 18. " D o y o u k n o w , G e n -
eral D o m b r o w s k i , " s h e l e c t u r e d h i m , " h o w t h e R e v o l u t i o n of M a r c h 18 be-
g a n ? H o w it w a s w o n ? By the women! O n t h a t g r e a t m o r n i n g , t h e t r o o p s of
the line were sent to M o n t m a r t r e . . . . T h e national guard, without leaders,

w i t h o u t o r d e r s , h e s i t a t e d b e f o r e a n o p e n attack. A few m o r e t u r n s of t h e
[cannons'] wheels, and you would never have been general of the Commune,
citoyen Dombrowski. B u t . . . t h e w o m e n , t h e c i t o y e n n e s of M o n t m a r t r e , in
the crowd, seized the bridles of the horses, s u r r o u n d e d the soldiers, a n d
said to t h e m : ' W h a t ! A r e y o u serving t h e e n e m i e s of t h e p e o p l e , you, o u r
c h i l d r e n ? . . . A r e y o u n o t a s h a m e d t o s e r v e t h e s e c o w a r d s ? ' " A n d t h e sol-
diers, h e a r i n g t h e w o m e n ' s " r e p r o a c h e s " a n d f e a r i n g that they m i g h t
" w o u n d t h e w o m e n a n d c r u s h t h e i r c h i l d r e n , " " t u r n e d t h e b u t t s o f t h e i r ri-
fles i n t o t h e a i r . " 3 7
L e o r e c a l l e d t h e R e v o l u t i o n o f 1 7 8 9 . " D o y o u t h i n k y o u c a n m a k e a rev-
o l u t i o n w i t h o u t t h e w o m e n ? " s h e a s k e d . " E i g h t y y e a r s a g o , t h e y t r i e d it, a n d
w e a r e n o t g o i n g t o s t a n d f o r it a g a i n . " T h e first F r e n c h R e v o l u t i o n g a v e
w o m e n t h e title o f c i t o y e n n e b u t e x c l u d e d t h e m f r o m t h e r i g h t s a s s o c i a t -
e d w i t h c i t i z e n s h i p . " R e p u l s e d by t h e R e v o l u t i o n , t h e w o m e n r e t u r n e d t o
Catholicism a n d f o r m e d an i m m e n s e reactionary force," a n d t h e revolu-
t i o n w a s lost. " W h e n , " s h e a s k e d r h e t o r i c a l l y , "will r e p u b l i c a n m e n d i s c o v -
e r t h a t t h i s h a s g o n e o n lone; e n o u g h ? W h e n will [ t h e y l e a r n ] . . . t h a t
w o m e n d o n o t w a n t [ t o b e ] a n d c a n n o t b e n e u t r a l . It is n e c e s s a r y t o c h o o s e
b e t w e e n t h e i r hostility a n d t h e i r d e v o t i o n . " W a r m i n g to h e r subject, she
s u g g e s t e d t h a t " h i s t o r y s i n c e ' 8 9 c o u l d b e w r i t t e n u n d e r t h e title: The His-
tory of the Inconsistencies of the Revolutionary Party. T h e s u b j e c t o f w o m e n
w o u l d m a k e t h e largest c h a p t e r , a n d t h e o n e in w h i c h o n e l e a r n s h o w this
p a r t y f o u n d a way t o c a u s e h a l f o f its t r o o p s , w h o a s k e d o n l y t o m a r c h a n d
t o fight w i t h t h e m , t o p a s s o v e r t o t h e s i d e o f t h e e n e m y . " 3 8
L e o b e l i e v e d t h a t m e n ' s r e f u s a l of w o m e n ' s assistance was b a s e d in t h e i r
f u n d a m e n t a l d e s i r e t o c o n t r o l w o m e n r a t h e r t h a n t o t r e a t t h e m as e q u a l s .
"They d e m a n d t h a t w o m e n n o l o n g e r b e u n d e r t h e i n f l u e n c e of t h e priests;
b u t they d o n o t w a n t to see h e r t h i n k freely," s h e r a g e d . "They d o n o t w a n t
h e r t o w o r k a g a i n s t t h e m , b u t t h e y r e j e c t h e r h e l p as s o o n as s h e o f f e r s it."
M e n a c t t h i s way b e c a u s e t h e y w a n t t o c o n t r o l w o m e n . " M a n y r e p u b l i c a n s
(not true republicans) have d e t h r o n e d the e m p e r o r a n d the good G o d
with t h e i n t e n t i o n of p u t t i n g t h e m s e l v e s in t h e i r places. . . . A n d naturally,
i n t h i s i n t e n t i o n , it is n e c e s s a r y t o h a v e s u b j e c t s . . . . [ S o ] w o m e n a r e t o re-
m a i n n e u t r a l a n d p a s s i v e , u n d e r t h e d i r e c t i o n o f m e n ; all t h e y will h a v e t o
c h a n g e is t h e i r c o n f e s s o r . " S u c h a p l a n w o u l d n o t w o r k , s h e d e c l a r e d sar-
castically, s i n c e G o d h a d a n i m m e n s e a d v a n t a g e o v e r m a n . " H e r e m a i n s
u n k n o w n which p e r m i t s h i m to be t h e ideal."39
Leo's a n g e r at the political a n d military leaders of the C o m m u n e m a d e
h e r a critic, b u t s h e d i d m o r e t h a n criticize. S h e a r t i c u l a t e d a n egalitarian
v i s i o n . " T h e R e v o l u t i o n , " s h e w r o t e , "exists o n l y by t h e e x e r c i s e o f r e a s o n
a n d liberty, b y s e a r c h i n g f o r t r u t h a n d j u s t i c e i n all t h i n g s . " N o o n e h a d t h e

r i g h t to d r a w a line a n d d e c l a r e t h a t s o m e of t h e " m a r c h i n g spirits" c o u l d
n o t c r o s s it. T h e R e v o l u t i o n w a s t h e r e s p o n s i b i l i t y o f "all h u m a n c r e a t u r e s
w i t h o u t any privilege of r a c e o r sex." A n y lesser vision, a n y restrictions
o n t h e e x t e n s i o n of liberty a n d justice, any h i e r a r c h y , any d i s c r i m i n a t i o n
a g a i n s t t h o s e w h o b e l i e v e d i n t h e r e v o l u t i o n a n d w e r e r e a d y t o d e f e n d it,
was a betrayal of t h e C o m m u n e . 4 0
L o u i s R o s s e l , t h e C o m m u n e ' s d e l e g a t e o f war, p u b l i c l y d e n o u n c e d t h e
o r d e r s of t h e C o m m i t t e e of P u b l i c Safety w h i c h h a d l e d to t h e r e j e c t i o n of
w o m e n ' s help, a n d asked L e o for advice.41 She r e s p o n d e d at l e n g t h with
c o n c r e t e suggestions a n d a f u r t h e r critique of the situation.42 T h e p r o b -
l e m , s h e d e c l a r e d , was t h a t t h e w o m e n h a d b o t h " m a s c u l i n e p r e j u d i c e " a n d
t h e "esprit d e c o r p s of t h e physicians" against t h e m , a n d b o t h of these im-
p e d i m e n t s were "tenacious a n d multiple." To m a k e matters worse, the am-
bulancieres would n o t simply act o n their own. T h e y n e e d e d t h e direction
o f t h e p h y s i c i a n s . L e o w a s n o t r e a d y t o give u p t h e e f f o r t , h o w e v e r : " S h o u l d
the republic, the Paris C o m m u n e , repulse a n d discourage t h e devotion of
its c i t o y e n n e s ? A s s u r e d l y n o t . W e o u g h t , i n s p i t e o f t h e c u r r e n t p r e j u d i c e ,
t h e c u r r e n t c u s t o m s , t o b e n d all o u r e f f o r t s t o a r r i v e as s o o n as p o s s i b l e a t
the t r u e fraternity of m e n a n d w o m e n , at t h e h a r m o n y of s e n t i m e n t s a n d
ideas, w h i c h a l o n e can establish h o n o r , equality, p e a c e , [ a n d ] t h e C o m -
m u n e of t h e f u t u r e . " 4 3
In t h e m e a n t i m e , t h e r e were c o n c r e t e steps to take. A few physicians
were ready to work with the ambulancieres, a n d t h r e e o r f o u r y o u n g
w o m e n w h o h a d passed their e x a m s at the Ecoleîe M e d e c i n e d e Paris
c o u l d b e p u t i n c h a r g e o f s o m e o f t h e a i d s t a t i o n s . "I h a v e n o d o u b t o f t h e i r
ability," s h e w r o t e . " T h e y h a d t h e a u d a c i t y t o f o r c e t h e d o o r s o f s c i e n c e ;
t h e y will c e r t a i n l y n o t fail i n t h e s e r v i c e o f h u m a n i t y a n d t h e R e v o l u t i o n . "
N e x t , " s o m e o f t h e m o s t d i s t i n g u i s h e d m i d w i v e s " c o u l d b e r e c r u i t e d t o as-
sist t h e t r o o p s . Finally, t h e c o m m u n e c o u l d a c c e p t t h e a s s i s t a n c e o f t h e f e -
male arrondissement committees. (These committees h a d already taken
r e s p o n s i b i l i t y f o r o r g a n i z i n g w o m e n t o c o o k a n d p r o v i d e m e d i c a l assis-
t a n c e f o r t h e t r o o p s . ) T h e C o m m u n e ' s r e l u c t a n c e t o a c c e p t s u c h h e l p was,
o f c o u r s e , t h e p o i n t , b u t L e o w a s n o t r e a d y t o give u p t h e s t r u g g l e f o r ac-
c e p t a n c e . T o d o so w o u l d b e t o give u p o n t h e r e v o l u t i o n . 4 4
L e o ' s writings reveal t h e p e r v a s i v e n e s s of g e n d e r d i c h o t o m i e s in n i n e -
teenth-century thought and the opposition w o m e n encountered from
e v e n t h e m o s t politically radical m e n , w h o , like conservatives, b e l i e v e d
t h e r e w e r e f u n d a m e n t a l ( n a t u r a l ) d i f f e r e n c e s b e t w e e n t h e sexes. M a n y
C o m m u n e l e a d e r s w h o f i r m l y b e l i e v e d i n civil l i b e r t i e s a n d t h e r i g h t t o
w o r k f o r all m e n e x t e n d e d n o s u c h b e l i e f s t o w o m e n . T h e i r v i s i o n o f t h e
social r e p u b l i c d i d n o t i n c l u d e e x t e n s i o n of t h e f r a n c h i s e , t h e r i g h t to
w o r k , e q u a l i t y i n m a r r i a g e , o r e q u a l p a y t o w o m e n . M u c h as t h e y m i g h t
p r a i s e w o m e n ' s h e r o i c a c t i o n s in t h e past, t h e y w a n t e d t h e m to r e m a i n pas-
sive i n t h e p r e s e n t . S u c h d i s t i n c t i o n s b e t w e e n m e n ' s a n d w o m e n ' s a c c e p t -
a b l e b e h a v i o r a n d a p p r o p r i a t e r i g h t s c o u l d b e d e f e n d e d o n l y if o n e b e -
l i e v e d , as t h e s e m e n a p p a r e n t l y d i d , t h a t t h e n a t u r e o f m a n a n d t h e n a t u r e
o f w o m a n w e r e s i g n i f i c a n t l y d i f f e r e n t i n ways t h a t m a d e it n a t u r a l f o r m e n
to d o m i n a t e a n d direct w o m e n .
L e o ' s vision of h u m a n n a t u r e a n d h u m a n rights d i f f e r e d dramatically
f r o m t h o s e t h a t she criticized. H e r s was a s t r o n g f e m a l e voice (albeit
m a s k e d by a m a l e p s e u d o n y m ) f o r w o m e n ' s equality. S h e t h o u g h t b o t h
w o m e n a n d m e n w e r e m o t i v a t e d by a g e n u i n e love f o r t h e r e p u b l i c , t h a t
b o t h were d r a w n to great causes, t h a t b o t h were ready to sacrifice t h e m -
selves f o r t h e r e v o l u t i o n . S h e p r a i s e d w o m e n ' s b r a v e r y a n d h a r d w o r k i n
p r e p a r i n g t h e city's d e f e n s e s . S h e b e l i e v e d w o m e n h a d as m u c h a t s t a k e i n
t h e r e v o l u t i o n as m e n d i d , i n d e e d , t h a t w o m e n , e s p e c i a l l y s i n g l e w o m e n
w h o lived by themselves, w e r e s u f f e r i n g m o r e t h a n m e n f r o m t h e lack of
w o r k a n d t h e h i g h cost of g o o d s . 4 5 S h e believed in "the t r u e f r a t e r n i t y " of
m e n a n d w o m e n . 4 6 T h e r e v o l u t i o n , if it h o p e d t o w i n , s h o u l d n o t , c o u l d
n o t e x c l u d e w o m e n f r o m full citizenship a n d r e b u f f their offers of help.
L e o d i d n o t m a i n t a i n t h a t m e n a n d w o m e n w e r e a l i k e i n all ways. S h e
s e e m s t o h a v e s e e n t h e m as e q u a l a n d c o m p l e m e n t a r y . S h e e m p h a s i z e d ,
f o r instance, t h e i m p o r t a n c e of w o m e n ' s self-sacrificing, n u r t u r i n g , a n d
morale-building activities. "Devoted and courageous citoyennes" did
everything f r o m cooking for the combattants to aiding the w o u n d e d and
d y i n g t o w o r k i n g b e h i n d t h e b a r r i c a d e s . I n s i g h t f u l a n d h a r d h e a d e d as s h e
w a s a b o u t t h e r e v o l u t i o n a n d its l e a d e r s , s h e w a s a l s o a n i n e t e e n t h - c e n t u -
ry r o m a n t i c . S h e wrote r e p e a t e d l y a b o u t w o m e n ' s passion f o r t h e revolu-
tion, t h e "fire in t h e i r eyes," a n d h o w they gave t h e m s e l v e s "entirely to t h e
g r a n d c a u s e , " as m e n d i d . 4 7 W h e n w o m e n w o r k e d w i t h m e n , s h e b e l i e v e d ,
t h e y i n s p i r e d a n d s t r e n g t h e n e d t h e m i n a way t h a t t h e i r m a l e c o m r a d e s
c o u l d n o t . T h e c o u r a g e of t h e w o m e n w h o w o r k e d b e h i n d t h e b a r r i c a d e s ,
" d o u b l e [ d ] t h e s t r e n g t h of the [male] c o m b a t t a n t s , " b e c a u s e "arms are
s t r o n g e r w h e n t h e h e a r t is firm,"48 and w h e n w o m e n f o u g h t alongside,
they " d o u b l e d the a r d o r " of t h e m e n . 4 9 F o r Leo, these c o n t r i b u t i o n s ap-
p e a r t o h a v e i n h e r e d i n t h e n a t u r e o f w o m a n ; t h e y w e r e n o t c u l t u r a l l y im-
posed.
If L e o saw t h e s e x e s as c o m p l e m e n t a r y , s h e d i d n o t b e l i e v e t h a t w o m e n
c o u l d n o t o r s h o u l d n o t t a k e u p a r m s . S h e saw n o t a r i g i d d i c h o t o m i z a t i o n
o f skills, i n t e l l i g e n c e , a n d will p o w e r b u t a r a n g e o f t h e s e a t t r i b u t e s i n b o t h
sexes. S o m e w o m e n w e r e s m a r t e r a n d s t r o n g e r willed t h a n others. S o m e
1 12
w e r e c a p a b l e of l e a d i n g ; s o m e w e r e n o t . S o m e w o m e n h a d " h a d t h e au-
dacity to force t h e d o o r s of science"; m o s t h a d not. S o m e wished to fight;
o t h e r s d i d n o t . T h e s a m e was t r u e of m e n . S o m e , especially ordinary
g u a r d s m e n , w e r e m o d e l s of self-sacrifice; o t h e r s w e r e n o t . S o m e w e r e suit-
e d to lead- m o s t w e r e n o t . S o m e u n d e r s t o o d w o m e n ' s c o m m i t m e n t to t h e
r e v o l u t i o n ; m o s t d i d n o t . All t h e s e d i f f e r e n c e s s h o u l d b e r e s p e c t e d a n d
used to the c o m m u n e ' s advantage. T h e p r o b l e m t h e C o m m u n e faced, she
t h o u g h t , w a s t h a t its s o l d i e r s , w h o m s h e r e p r e s e n t e d a s t h e " p o o r s u b l i m e
a r t i s a n s " w h o w e r e s a c r i f i c i n g t h e i r lives f o r t h e s o c i a l r e v o l u t i o n , u n d e r -
s t o o d t h e C o m m u n e ' s p r i n c i p l e s b e t t e r t h a n its l e a d e r s d i d , i n c l u d i n g t h e
p r i n c i p l e o f p o l i t i c a l r i g h t s a n d e q u a l i t y f o r all p e o p l e , f e m a l e a s w e l l as
male.
Augustine-Melvine Blanchecotte
Augustine-Melvine B l a n c h e c o t t e o b s e r v e d politics a n d w o m e n f r o m a
different perspective. H e r experiences a n d opinions are known to us
t h r o u g h t h e diary she p u b l i s h e d in 1872. T h e diary a p p e a r s to b e unedit-
e d a l t h o u g h it is i m p o s s i b l e t o b e c e r t a i n . If it w a s e d i t e d , it w a s i n t h e e a r -
ly a f t e r m a t h o f t h e C o m m u n e , f o r t h e d a t e o n t h e i n t r o d u c t i o n is D e c e m -
b e r 15, 1 8 7 1 . Little w o u l d h a v e o c c u r r e d s i n c e t h e last e n t r y i n t h e d i a r y
( J u n e 23, 1871) to alter B l a n c h e c o t t e ' s o p i n i o n s a b o u t t h e revolution, t h e
war with Versailles, a n d t h e m e n a n d w o m e n s h e e n c o u n t e r e d d u r i n g t h e
Commune.
B l a n c h e c o t t e reveals little p e r s o n a l i n f o r m a t i o n i n t h e diary. W e l e a r n
t h a t she lived a l o n e in a n a p a r t m e n t n e a r t h e b o u l e v a r d Saint-Michel a n d
t h e P a n t h e o n , t h a t s h e w o r k e d as a n a m b u l a n c i e r e d u r i n g t h e P r u s s i a n
siege, t h a t she c o u n t e d priests a n d p e r h a p s s o m e C o m m u n e officials
a m o n g h e r f r i e n d s a n d a c q u a i n t a n c e s , a n d t h a t she was a pacifist. S h e
s e e m s to have b e e n well k n o w n in h e r n e i g h b o r h o o d , a n d s h e a n d h e r
neighbors h e l p e d a n d protected each other w h e n they could. We know
n o t h i n g , however, a b o u t h e r family, h e r s o u r c e of i n c o m e , h e r age, o r h e r
marital status. F r o m d o c u m e n t s s h e i n c l u d e s in h e r diary, we k n o w t h a t she
was called M m e Blanchecotte, w h i c h may indicate t h a t she was m a r r i e d or
widowed, or may only indicate h e r age.50
B l a n c h e c o t t e o b s e r v e d t h e r e v o l u t i o n carefully. Like e v e r y o n e else m
t h e city s h e r e a d t h e g o v e r n m e n t ' s p r o n o u n c e m e n t s o n w a l l p o s t e r s a n d
in the press, e n d u r e d the army's shelling, w a t c h e d the National Guard
m a r c h i n g t h r o u g h t h e s t r e e t s , w i t n e s s e d t h e b u i l d i n g o f b a r r i c a d e s , a n d at-
The Femm.es Fortes of Paris J
43
t e n d e d funerals. While she claimed that she p r e f e r r e d to r e m a i n anony-

m o u s a n d o u t o f t h e p u b l i c e y e , s h e e n g a g e d i n p u b l i c activity s e v e r a l t i m e s .
Most notably, in April she w r o t e letters, visited officials of t h e C o m m u n e ,
a n d even braved the f o r m i d a b l e P r e f e c t u r e d e Police to obtain the release
of a priest, h e r f r i e n d a n d n e i g h b o r , w h o h a d b e e n a r r e s t e d with t h e a r c h -
b i s h o p o f P a r i s . H e r s u c c e s s i n f r e e i n g h i m g a v e h e r g r e a t j o y . It was, s h e
said, " p e r h a p s t h e o n l y j o y t h a t I h a v e h a d i n m y life! O n e , o n e p o o r d a y
h a d n o t b e e n absolutely useless!"51
I n c o n t r a s t to A n d r e Leo, B l a n c h e c o t t e was a political outsider. S h e ob-

served b o t h sides in t h e conflict a n d p a s s e d h e r own j u d g m e n t o n t h e m ,
lamenting the decisions that caused and p e r p e t u a t e d the war and finding
m o r e t o c r i t i c i z e t h a n t o p r a i s e o n b o t h s i d e s . A t t h e b e g i n n i n g o f t h e rev-
olution, she t h o u g h t "certain r e f o r m s that [the revolutionaries] are de-
m a n d i n g are reasonable" b u t that F r a n c e n e e d e d m o r e time to r e c o v e r -
f r o m t h e w a r w i t h P r u s s i a b e f o r e it c o u l d h e a r s u c h d e m a n d s . 5 2 I n early-
April, s h e c o n t i n u e d to believe t h a t t h e assembly in Versailles h a d "favored
the p r o p e r t y owners too m u c h a n d [had] n o t t a k e [ n ] e n o u g h a c c o u n t of
t h e p u b l i c m i s e r y , " b u t t h e C o m m u n e ' s laws " f a v o r [ e d ] t h e r e n t e r t o o
m u c h . " In short, the d e c r e e s ofVersailles lacked "generosity"; those of t h e
C o m m u n e , ' j u s t i c e . " 5 3 H e r c r i t i c i s m o f V e r s a i l l e s "seems h a r s h e r t h a n h e r
c o m p l a i n t s a b o u t t h e C o m m u n e , h o w e v e r , a n d s h e s e e m s less n e u t r a l
a b o u t t h e o u t c o m e of t h e conflict. W h e n s h e m a d e a t r i p to Versailles in
e a r l y May, f o r i n s t a n c e , s h e d e c l a r e d t h a t " t h e a t m o s p h e r e o f P a r i s o p -
presses me, [but] the a t m o s p h e r e ofVersailles suffocates m e . " 5 4
B l a n c h e c o t t e ' s s t r o n g e s t c r i t i c i s m s w e r e o f t h e w a r a n d t h e two g o v e r n -
m e n t s ' f a i l u r e s t o find a way t o e n d it. A s a n a v o w e d p a c i f i s t , s h e d e s p a i r e d
a t w h a t s h e saw, p a r t i c u l a r l y o n e t e r r i b l e n e w i n v e n t i o n . " P e o p l e a r e talk-
i n g a b o u t t h e mitrailleuses blindees [ m a c h i n e g u n s ] , " s h e w r o t e i n e a r l y A p r i l ,
"each p i e r c e d with thirty-seven holes." S t u n n e d by t h e killing capacity, s h e
c o u l d o n l y r e p e a t t h e f i g u r e . " T h i r t y - s e v e n h o l e s ! T h i r t y - s e v e n times' t h e
n u m b e r of bullets! Thirty-seven t i m e s t h e d e a t h ! " Versailles's b o m b a r d -
m e n t o f t h e city w a s " t h e m a d n e s s o f b a r b a r i t y . " 5 5 A r i s i n g f r o m t h e P a r i s i a n
a r m a m e n t s a t T r o c a d e r o , s h e saw " t h e s m o k e o f t h e m u r d e r o u s c a n n o n s ,
of t h e b l i n d d e a t h t h a t s t r i k e s a t r a n d o m . " 5 6
I n B l a n c h e c o t t e ' s view, w a r w a s a m a l e activity. S h e f e l t n o n e o f t h e " h o l y
fever" a n d "sublime passion" A n d r e L e o attributed to w o m e n . M e n b e g a n
wars, g l o r i f i e d t h e m , f o u g h t a n d d i e d i n t h e m ; w o m e n c o u l d o n l y s u f f e r
t h e m . " T h e r e is, i n all h u m a n c a u s e s , o n l y u n h a p p i n e s s f o r u s w o m e n , " s h e
d e c l a r e d o n A p r i l 1 2 . 5 7 T h i s war, in p a r t i c u l a r , s i n c e it w a s a civil war, was
a "frightful exhibition of ambitions, weaknesses, errors of j u d g m e n t , a n d
1 12
f o l l y . " 5 8 W h e n it w a s o v e r , t h i s " u n s p e a k a b l e b a t t l e o f civilized m a n a g a i n s t

civilized m a n " w o u l d m a k e all o t h e r t r a g e d i e s ( " e v e n i n t i m a t e o n e s " ) s e e m
like " g a m e s . " 5 9
B l a n c h e c o t t e w a s n o t i n c l i n e d t o give u p t h e a t t e m p t t o save m e n f r o m
their mistakes, however, n o r did she believe o t h e r w o m e n s h o u l d surren-
d e r t h e i r will t o m e n ' s . " R e a l w o m e n " (vraies femmes) w o u l d t r y t o save t h e i r
h u s b a n d s , sons, a n d b r o t h e r s f r o m themselves.60 In a diary entry, written
o n t h e s a m e day t h a t A n d r e L e o ' s article "Toutes avec tous" called f o r
w o m e n a n d m e n to stand a n d fight together, Blanchecotte e c h o e d Leo's
p h r a s e m o r e t h a n o n c e b u t called o n m e n a n d w o m e n to j o i n t o g e t h e r in
t h e c a u s e of p e a c e i n s t e a d . " T h e h o r r i b l e s t r u g g l e c a n e n d u r e n o l o n g e r ;
l e t u s p r o t e s t , toutes et tous" s h e w r o t e . " L e t u s r i s e u p , toutes et tous, w i t h o u r
hearts for banners; the whole country suffers a n d bleeds. E n o u g h blood
has b e e n shed! S t o p t h e killing!" T h e n , in w o r d s t h a t themselves w o u l d b e
e c h o e d i n t h e a p p e a l f o r p e a c e w i t h w h i c h t h e groupe de citoyennes placard-
e d Paris o n May 4, B l a n c h e c o t t e c o n t i n u e d h e r private a p p e a l f o r p e a c e ,
s p o k e n only in h e r diary, e m p h a s i z i n g t h e r e l a t i o n s h i p s b e t w e e n w o m e n
a n d m e n . "I a p p e a l t o m o t h e r s , t o sisters, t o d a u g h t e r s , t o w o m e n w i t h o u t
p o l i t i c a l d i s t i n c t i o n , " s h e w r o t e , "I a p p e a l t o f a t h e r s , t o b r o t h e r s , t o s o n s ,
t o m e n o f all f l a g s a n d all a r m i e s . W h a t a r e t h e s e g e o g r a p h i c a l w o r d s : P a r i s ,
Versailles; Versailles, P a r i s ? T h i s is F r a n c e , la grande France, t h a t is k i l l i n g it-
self! T h i s is h u m a n i t y , civilized h u m a n i t y t h a t is c o m m i t t i n g s u i c i d e ! " 6 1
T h e s e w o r d s m a k e o n e w o n d e r if B l a n c h e c o t t e m i g h t n o t h a v e b e e n p a r t
o f t h e groupe de citoyennes t h a t c a l l e d f o r a n e n d t o t h e war, b u t if s h e was,
s h e m a d e n o m e n t i o n o f it i n h e r d i a r y . I n d e e d , h e r d i a r y o n l y s u m m a r i z e s
t h e M a y 4 a p p e a l , w h e r e a s it i n c l u d e s t h e e n t i r e t e x t o f t h e r e s p o n s e b y t h e
U n i o n d e s F e m m e s , w i t h w h i c h s h e d i s a g r e e d . 6 2 T h e U n i o n ' s call t o a r m s
w a s n o t a s u r p r i s e t o B l a n c h e c o t t e . S h e h a d r e a d L e o ' s a r t i c l e s i n La Sociale.
S h e h a d o b s e r v e d a d e m o n s t r a t i o n i n e a r l y A p r i l a n d h a d s e e n "a p r e t t y
d a u g h t e r of t h e p e o p l e , a d m i r a b l y g o t u p , " c o n t e m p l a t e t h e m a c h i n e g u n s
"with e n t h u s i a s m " a n d p r o p o s e t h a t w o m e n s h o u l d m a r c h i n f r o n t o f t h e
C o m m u n e ' s t r o o p s "so t h e a r m y will n o t fire."63 She h a d seen women,
" a r m e d w i t h rifles, r e v o l v e r s s t u c k i n t h e i r b e l t s , r e d s c a r v e s o v e r t h e i r
shoulders, accompany and urge o n the combattants," and she knew about
w o m e n orators in t h e c h u r c h e s . 6 4
Blanchecotte disagreed with these w o m e n , b u t she u n d e r s t o o d them, at
least in p a r t . T h e y h a d , s h e t h o u g h t , b e e n " e x c i t e d by t h e m e n , a n d now,
in their turn, were exciting t h e m e n . " 6 5 T h e y believed that they were en-
g a g e d i n a g r e a t s o c i a l c a u s e . 6 6 A n d m a n y o f t h e m w e r e y o u n g ; 6 7 so t h e i r
e n t h u s i a s m c o u l d b e e x p l a i n e d as l a c k o f e x p e r i e n c e a n d t h e r o m a n t i -
c i z a t i o n o f war.
43
A n o t h e r g r o u p of w o m e n was b e y o n d h e r c o m p r e h e n s i o n , t h o s e w h o
s o u g h t r e v e n g e of o n e k i n d o r a n o t h e r . T h e y w e r e n o t e x c i t e d by a g r e a t
c a u s e o r l e d a s t r a y by r o m a n t i c i s m . T h e y w e r e d r i v e n b y d a r k e r , a p p a l l i n g
m o t i v e s . I n d e e d , f o r B l a n c h e c o t t e , t h e y w e r e h a r d l y w o m e n , a t all. A n d
they e x i s t e d o n b o t h sides.
W h e n s h e m a d e a t r i p t o V e r s a i l l e s i n e a r l y May, s h e w a s o v e r w h e l m e d
by t h e t r e a t m e n t o f t h e p r i s o n e r s w h o w e r e b e i n g m a r c h e d t h r o u g h t h e
s t r e e t s . S h e h e l d h e r h a n d s i n f r o n t o f h e r eyes, s o s h e w o u l d n o t h a v e t o
see e i t h e r t h e v a n q u i s h e d o r t h e victors. H e r e a r s c o u l d n o t h e l p b u t h e a r
the "impassioned curses" h e a p e d u p o n t h e prisoners, however, a n d a m i d
t h e c l a m o r , unbelievably, s h e h a d d i s c e r n e d "the voices of w o m e n " s h o u t -
i n g , " D o w n w i t h t h e p r i s o n e r s ! T h e f i r i n g s q u a d is t o o g o o d f o r t h e m ! Kill
t h e b a n d i t s ! " T h i s w a s i n t o l e r a b l e . "I u n d e r s t a n d e x a s p e r a t i o n a t t h e l e a d -
e r s o f t h e t r i u m p h a n t C o m m u n e , " s h e w r o t e , " b u t I d o n o t u n d e r s t a n d it
vis-ä-vis t h e v a n q u i s h e d p r i s o n e r s , t h i s t r o o p o f t h e u n c o n s c i o u s , t h e mis-
l e d , t h e s a c r i f i c i a l o f f e r i n g s o f b o t h s i d e s , t h e s e o u t c a s t s o f t h e s t r u g g l e . Kill
t h e m in battle, e n c h a i n t h e m , i m p r i s o n t h e m , j u d g e t h e m , c o n d e m n t h e m
in d e f e a t , b u t d o n o t insult t h e m . T h e y a r e n o t dirt!" W o m e n ' s involve-
m e n t , o f c o u r s e , m a d e it w o r s e . " A f t e r t h e m a d n e s s o f m e n k i l l i n g m e n , "
s h e l a m e n t e d , " t h e a b s e n c e o f pity i n w o m e n is f r i g h t f u l ! " 0 8
Five d a y s later, s h e w i t n e s s e d a s c e n e i n P a r i s w h i c h w a s s i m i l a r l y i n t o l -
e r a b l e . "An e l e g a n t c i t o y e n n e . . . I o u g h t t o say a c r e a t u r e , " s h e w r o t e ,
" d r e s s e d i n silk, w i t h l a c e g l o v e s , " m a d e " a n a c t o f p a t r i o t i s m . . . by d e -
n o u n c i n g a n d h a v i n g a r r e s t e d a refractaire [a d e s e r t e r f r o m t h e a r m y ] , h e r
lover f o r t h e m o n t h . " She believed " a n o t h e r w o m a n — a real woman-
w o u l d h a v e k i l l e d h e r s e l f i n h e r s h a m e , " b u t "she is going to kill him. It is
hideous!" she declared.69
D u r i n g t h e s e m a i n e s a n g l a n t e , B l a n c h e c o t t e was i n c r e d u l o u s w h e n s h e
h e a r d a b o u t t h e p e t r o l e u s e s . T h a t w o m e n w o u l d h e l p t o b u r n t h e city w a s
b e y o n d b e l i e f , a n d s h e r h e t o r i c a l l y a s k e d i n h e r d i a r y , "Is it p o s s i b l e ? " 7 0 T o
f i g h t a n d kill a n d d i e i n b a t t l e w a s o n e t h i n g . T o s e t f i r e s o r kill a r b i t r a r i l y
o r vindictively was a n o t h e r . S u c h a c t i o n s w e r e m o r a l l y i n d e f e n s i b l e n o m a t -
ter w h o d i d t h e m , b u t w h e n they w e r e d o n e by w o m e n , t h e y violated n o t
only society's m o r a l c o d e b u t also B l a n c h e c o t t e ' s c o n c e p t u a l i z a t i o n of
w o m a n ' s n a t u r e . Real w o m e n w e r e pacifists. T h e y a b h o r r e d killing f o r a n y
reason. T h e y would n o t have e n g a g e d in v e n g e f u l attacks o n p e o p l e or
property. T h o s e w h o did, r e g a r d l e s s of t h e i r politics, c e a s e d to b e fully h u -
m a n a n d b e c a m e "creatures," acting o u t of animalistic intentions.71
B l a n c h e c o t t e h e r s e l f w a s a d a m a n t a b o u t n o t p a r t i c i p a t i n g in t h e k i l l i n g
in a n y way. F o r t w o d a y s d u r i n g t h e V e r s a i l l e s i n v a s i o n o f t h e city, s h e r e -
f u s e d to leave h e r a p a r t m e n t b e c a u s e a n y o n e w h o v e n t u r e d o u t o n t o t h e
a
street was f o r c e d to h e l p b u i l d t h e b a r r i c a d e s . S h e b e l i e v e d e v e n this de-

fensive act w o u l d m a k e h e r c o m p l i c i t in t h e killing. T o a d d even o n e paving
s t o n e " c o u l d r e p r e s e n t t h e d e a t h of m e n , " s h e w r o t e in h e r diary, a n d s h e
w o u l d n o t d o it. " N o o n e c a n m a k e m e p u t a s t o n e o n a b a r r i c a d e , " s h e d e -
c l a r e d . " T h e y will h a v e t o kill m e b e f o r e t h e y will f o r c e m e t o d o t h a t . " 7 2
J u s t as s h e h a d h i d d e n h e r e y e s w h e n t h e p r i s o n e r s w e r e marched
t h r o u g h V e r s a i l l e s a t t h e b e g i n n i n g o f t h e m o n t h , s h e w a n t e d t o l o o k away,
t o s t o p h e r e a r s f r o m h e a r i n g a n d h e r e y e s f r o m s e e i n g , as s e e m i n g l y e n d -
less g r o u p s o f p r i s o n e r s w e r e m a r c h e d t h r o u g h t h e city t o i m p r i s o n m e n t
o r d e a t h : "I u n d e r s t a n d b a t t l e , t h e f r i g h t f u l f e v e r o f c o m b a t ; I d o n o t u n -
d e r s t a n d , at t h e h o u r of severe j u s t i c e , t h e m e r r i m e n t of t h e gallery. At this
m o m e n t I w o u l d l i k e t o live o n t h e m o o n so I w o u l d n o t h a v e t o e n c o u n t e r
a n o t h e r of t h e s e sad p r o c e s s i o n s . " 7 3
A n d so s h e d e c i d e d o n t h e p u b l i c a c t o f p u b l i s h i n g h e r d i a r y , a n d t o d e d -
i c a t e it " t o t h e d i s a r m a m e n t o f t h e spirits, t o p e a c e , t o u n i t y , t o h a r m o n y ,
t o t h e h e a l i n g o f t h e o p p o s i n g p a r t i e s a n d , if it is p o s s i b l e , t o p u b l i c a g r e e -
m e n t , to c o m m o n sense."74 T h e s e desires, she believed, were t h o s e of every
t r u e w o m a n , b u t h e r a c t i n t h e i r b e h a l f s h o w s h o w c o n t r a d i c t o r y h e r views
o f t r u e w o m a n h o o d w e r e . S h e t h o u g h t o f h e r s e l f a n d o t h e r w o m e n as p o -
litically n e u t r a l . W o m e n lost, n o m a t t e r w h a t s i d e t h e y w e r e o n . T h e r e f o r e ,
they w e r e o n n o side. B u t to b e a pacifist d u r i n g w a r t i m e was a p r o f o u n d -
ly p o l i t i c a l a c t . A l t h o u g h s h e d e c l a r e d h e r s e l f g l a d t o b e a w o m a n , " t o b e
a b l e , like a c h i l d , t o b e t r e a t e d as b e i n g w i t h o u t c o n s e q u e n c e , . . . t o h a v e
n o t h i n g t o d i s p u t e with t h e g o v e r n m e n t of t h e c o u n t r y , " 7 5 s h e h a d a p r o -
f o u n d d i s p u t e w i t h t h e g o v e r n m e n t a n d s h e b a d l y w a n t e d t o h a v e h e r views
t a k e n seriously. S h e w a n t e d h e r v o i c e t o b e h e a r d . I t w a s a n a w k w a r d a n d
contradictory position for a "true w o m a n " to b e in.
Celine de Mazade
C e l i n e d e M a z a d e s p e n t t h e first six w e e k s o f t h e C o m m u n e i n P a r i s , o b -
serving the revolution a n d r u n n i n g the Parisian e n d of h e r family's textile
b u s i n e s s . H e r o p i n i o n s a n d e x p e r i e n c e s a r e k n o w n t o u s t h r o u g h t h e let-
t e r s s h e w r o t e t o h e r h u s b a n d A l e x a n d r e , w h i c h w e r e p u b l i s h e d as p a r t o f
the family c o r r e s p o n d e n c e in 1892.76 In contrast to Augustine-Melvine
B l a n c h e c o t t e ' s d i a r y , M a z a d e ' s p u b l i s h e d l e t t e r s tell u s a g r e a t d e a l a b o u t
h e r p e r s o n a l l i f e a n d little a b o u t h e r p o l i t i c s . T h e r e a r e e l l i p s e s i n t h e let-
ters, w h i c h m a y i n d i c a t e o m i s s i o n s f r o m t h e originals, s o m e p e r h a p s deal-
i n g w i t h t h e C o m m u n e , b u t t h e r e is n o way t o r e t r i e v e a n y e x c i s e d m a t e r -
ial, a n d t h e e l l i p s e s m a y b e o n l y M a z a d e ' s l i t e r a r y style.
I n m a n y ways, M a z a d e fits B l a n c h e c o t t e ' s d e f i n i t i o n o f a " t r u e w o m a n . "

S h e lived h e r life o u t s i d e o f p o l i t i c s , o p p o s e d t h e w a r b e t w e e n P a r i s a n d
Versailles, a n d h e l p e d h e r h u s b a n d e v a d e t h e N a t i o n a l G u a r d m o b i l i z a -
t i o n . S h e was r e l i g i o u s a n d d o m e s t i c , g r i e v i n g o v e r t h e a r r e s t s o f p r i e s t s ,
w r i t i n g t o A l e x a n d r e a b o u t f r i e n d s a n d family, a n d e v e n s e n d i n g h i m n e w s
of t h e cat. " S h e m e o w s a l s o t o h a v e n e w s o f y o u , " s h e t o l d h i m . "In t h e
m o r n i n g , w h e n she enters my r o o m , she looks for you everywhere."77 But
t h e r e was m o r e t o C e l i n e d e M a z a d e ' s life t h a n d o m e s t i c i t y a n d r e l i g i o n ,
a n d s h e was n o t a p u r e p a c i f i s t .
Celine a n d A l e x a n d r e d e M a z a d e were successful textile m a n u f a c t u r e r s
with factories in R o n q u e r o l l e s - C l e r m o n t in t h e Oise a n d a w a r e h o u s e a n d
s h o p in Paris. T h e P a r i s i a n s h o p p u r c h a s e d silk f o r t h e l o o m s a n d o t h e r
raw materials, s h i p p e d t h e m to R o n q u e r o l l e s , a n d a r r a n g e d f o r t h e d y e i n g
and finishing o f t h e c o m p l e t e d c o t t o n a n d silk f a b r i c . C e l i n e w a s a n active
p a r t n e r in this b u s i n e s s . S h e c o p e d w i t h t h e b u s i n e s s a c c o u n t s , p r e s s u r e d
s u p p l i e r s f o r m o r e silk, a r r a n g e d f o r t h e t r a n s p o r t o f m a t e r i a l s , a n d k n e w
how to bribe the authorities w h e n necessary.
In M a r c h b o t h C e l i n e a n d A l e x a n d r e d e M a z a d e m o v e d freely in a n d o u t
of P a r i s , a l t h o u g h e v e n t h e n t h e i r d i v i s i o n o f l a b o r m e a n t t h a t A l e x a n d r e
s p e n t m o s t of his t i m e in R o n q u e r o l l e s while C e l i n e d e a l t with business in
Paris. T h i s a r r a n g e m e n t e n d e d o n A p r i l 5, w h e n C e l i n e w a r n e d A l e x a n d r e
n o t t o r e t u r n t o P a r i s . T h e w a r n i n g was p r o m p t e d by a visit f r o m a N a t i o n a l
G u a r d p l a t o o n t h a t was s e a r c h i n g f o r A l e x a n d r e . T h e b o u r g e o i s u n i t s o f
t h e National G u a r d h a d resisted mobilization since t h e e n d of t h e Pruss-
i a n s i e g e , s i n c e they, t o o , w e r e d i s a f f e c t e d f r o m t h e n a t i o n a l g o v e r n m e n t .
T h i s r e s i s t a n c e h a d a i d e d t h e M a r c h 18 r e v o l t o f t h e w o r k i n g - c l a s s g u a r d s -
m e n w h e n t h e b o u r g e o i s units r e f u s e d to h e l p t h e army. Now, however, t h e
b o u r g o i s i e ' s r e f u s a l t o d e f e n d t h e C o m m u n e a g a i n s t Versailles b o t h r e -
d u c e d t h e f o r c e s u n d e r t h e C o m m u n e ' s c o m m a n d a n d r a i s e d t h e possi-
bility of a t h i r d c o l u m n w i t h i n t h e city's walls. T o solve t h e s e p r o b l e m s , t h e
C o m m u n e p a s s e d c o n s c r i p t i o n laws a n d i n s t i t u t e d citywide s e a r c h e s f o r
d r a f t d o d g e r s . 7 8 A l e x a n d r e d e M a z a d e w a s o n t h e i r list.
Realizing t h e d a n g e r b o t h to Alexandre, s h o u l d h e r e t u r n , a n d to her-

self, s h o u l d s h e b e c a u g h t w a r n i n g h i m , C e l i n e n e v e r t h e l e s s d i s p a t c h e d a
l e t t e r , a d j u r i n g h i m t o stay a w a y . 7 9 T h u s b e g a n h e r a d v e n t u r e s a l o n e i n t h e
C o m m u n e . S h e was n o t t h e only b o u r g e o i s e w h o r e m a i n e d in Paris while
h e r h u s b a n d r e s i d e d safely o u t s i d e t h e city. O n A p r i l 6 s h e r e p o r t e d t o
A l e x a n d r e t h a t s h e a n d M m e A u g u s t e T h i e b a u l t w e r e b o t h f e e l i n g "very
p r o u d to have p u t o u r h u s b a n d s in safety a n d to b e g u a r d i n g o u r houses,"
a d d i n g , w i t h a t o u c h o f h u m o r , "We a r e des femmes fortes,"80 T h u s she played
with t h e i n v e r t e d g e n d e r roles in w h i c h t h e M a z a d e s f o u n d themselves a n d
1
j ^2 Unruly Women of Paris
e v o k e d t h e c u l t u r a l i m a g e of t h e a m a z o n , b u t only t e m p o r a r i l y , f o r herself.
By A p r i l 18 C e l i n e ' s m o t h e r - i n - l a w c o u l d b e c o u n t e d a m o n g t h e f e m m e s
f o r t e s , as c o u l d M m e V i c t o r P i l l o n - D u f r e s n e s , w i f e o f a n o t h e r m a n u f a c -
turer, w h o also r e m a i n e d in Paris a n d r e p o r t e d to h e r h u s b a n d in R o n -
q u e r o l l e s t h a t s h e " s h a r e d t h e c a l m n e s s of t h e b r a v e i n h a b i t a n t s of Paris,"
a n d h a d " n o t t h e least f e a r in t h e world."81
C e l i n e a n d A l e x a n d r e c o r r e s p o n d e d a l m o s t daily. S h e s e n t h i m n e w s
f r o m Paris: t h e successful a t t e m p t of t h e w o m e n of o n e q u a r t e r to f r e e t h e i r
cure ( p a r i s h p r i e s t ) f r o m j a i l so h e c o u l d say t h e E a s t e r m a s s , t h e a r r e s t o f
t h e i r o w n cure, t h e u n e n d i n g n o i s e o f t h e b o m b a r d m e n t , t h e a r r e s t s o f var-
ious m e m b e r s of t h e C e n t r a l C o m m i t t e e , t h e s u p p r e s s i o n of o p p o s i t i o n
newspapers, a n d the N a t i o n a l G u a r d ' s h a r a s s m e n t of o t h e r w o m e n w h o s e
h u s b a n d s h a d f l e d t h e city. W h a t u p s e t h e r t h e m o s t w a s s e e i n g p r i e s t s a n d
n u n s m a r c h e d t h r o u g h t h e streets s u r r o u n d e d by t h e N a t i o n a l G u a r d .
T h a t C e l i n e was p r e p a r e d to c o p e with t h e difficulties of life in Paris u n -
d e r t h e C o m m u n e was clear f r o m t h e b e g i n n i n g . S h e g o t rid of t h e Na-
tional G u a r d by telling t h e m A l e x a n d r e was "usefully o c c u p i e d at [his] fac-
t o r y . " T o l d t o " m a k e h i m r e t u r n , " s h e r e p l i e d , "Very well, g e n t l e m e n , I will
a l e r t h i m , b u t I d o u b t t h a t m y l e t t e r will r e a c h h i m p r o m p t l y . " T h e n , in-
s t e a d o f s u m m o n i n g h i m , s h e w a r n e d h i m t o stay away, a n d c o n t i n u e d t o
u n d e r t a k e h a z a r d o u s t r i p s o u t o f P a r i s t o m e e t h i m . 8 2 O n A p r i l 18, h o w -
ever, s h e t o l d A l e x a n d r e t h a t h e r t r i p s i n a n d o u t o f t h e city w o u l d h a v e t o
end.' E d o u a r d ( a n e m p l o y e e ) h a d advised h e r n o t to leave a g a i n , s h e w r o t e ,
t h o u g h " t h e r e is n o d a n g e r f o r t h e m o m e n t " i n r e m a i n i n g i n t h e city. 8 3
In t h e b e g i n n i n g , Celine was c h e e r f u l a b o u t t h e c o n s t a n t b o m b a r d m e n t
o f P a r i s . E v e n o n A p r i l 18, w h e n s h e p e r c e i v e d t h a t it w a s n o l o n g e r s a f e
f o r h e r t o c o m e a n d g o f r o m t h e city, s h e w r o t e t o A l e x a n d r e t h a t s h e h a d
h e a r d n o c a n n o n o r g u n f i r e , "except two c a n n o n shots" while s h e was en-
t e r i n g t h e t r a i n s t a t i o n . T h e s e s h e wryly r e m a r k e d w e r e " p r o b a b l y t o c e l e -
b r a t e o u r a r r i v a l . " 8 4 B u t t h e c o n s t a n t s h e l l i n g o f t h e city b y t h e V e r s a i l l e s
e v e n t u a l l y b e g a n t o t a k e its toll o n h e r . O n t h e t w e n t y - f o u r t h s h e w r o t e t o
A l e x a n d r e , n o w i n Lille, t h a t s h e w a s f i n e , " e x c e p t f o r a s m a l l n e r v o u s
t r e m o r t h a t I h a v e h a d f o r t w o o r t h r e e days, c a u s e d p r o b a b l y b y t h e c a n -
n o n f i r e o f t h e n i g h t o f F r i d a y t o S a t u r d a y t h a t w a s f r i g h t f u l , b u t it is n o t h -
ing." S h e s i g n e d h e r letter, "your p o o r love."85
At this point, Alexandre's c o n c e r n a b o u t Celine t u r n e d to alarm. O n
April 26 h e w r o t e to Victor Pillon-Dufresnes, w h o s e wife was also in Paris,
t h a t h e was "uneasy a b o u t t h e c o n d i t i o n of t h e w o m e n " t h e r e . H e t h o u g h t
it w a s " a b s o l u t e l y n e c e s s a r y t h a t t h e y l e a v e t h a t p l a c e , t h a t t h e y c l o s e t h e
business."86 But Celine h a d regained h e r equilibrium a n d sent Alexandre
43
a r e a s s u r i n g n o t e : "I a s s u r e y o u , d e a r love, t h a t I s e e n o d a n g e r in r e m a m -
m g i n Paris; I a m r i s k i n g n o t h i n g . - A l e x a n d r e was n o t r e a s L e d . O n t h e
twenty n i n t h , h e w r o t e ^ ^ „You d o ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ e
a r a t e d f r o m y o u , e s p e c i a l l y in s u c h t e r r i b l e c i r c u m s t a n c e s . I a m c o n s t a m -
y in a s t a t e o f a n x i e t y ; I f e v e r i s h l y o p e n y o u r l e t t e r s w h i c h o n l y r e a s s u r e m e
a little, b e i n g w r i t t e n two o r t h r e e days b e f o r e I r e c e i v e t h e m . " A l e x a n d r e
was a d a m a n t . H e a s k e d C e l i n e if s h e h a d d o n e w h a t h e s a i d a n d l e f t P a r i s
tem a n t ° R o " " " " J t 0 r ^ " ^ a n d C ° U r a g e t 0 e x c e s s - " " * L e t be c o r ,

t e n t a t R o n q u e r o lies f o r t h e m o m e n t ; c o m e w h a t m a y in Paris."«« H a v i n g
c o n f i d e d o n A p r i l 2 y t h a t s h e was 'very ^ a f r a i d , ' ^ Celine a c c e d e d to
A l e x a n d r e s w i s h e s o n M a y i a n d l e f t t h e city.
W h a t k e p t C e l i n e d e M a z a d e a n d o t h e r b o u r g e o i s w o m e n in P a r i s w h e n
U was n 0 o n g e r s a f e f o r t h e m e n to r e m a i n t h e r e was a t w o f o l d c o n c e r n
with t h e f a m i l y s p r o p e r t y a n d b u s i n e s s . R u m o r s a n d Versailles p r e s s ac-
c o u n t s of t h e pillaging of c h u r c h e s a n d h o u s e s p r o v o k e d f e a r that t h e r
h o m e s w o u l d n o t b e s a f e if t h e y w e r e l e f t u n o c c u p i e d . T h i s f e a r was e x a
e r b a t e d l a t e in A p r i l w h e n t h e C o m m u n e d e c i d e d t o h o u s e e v a c u e e s f r o m
N e u i l l y in a b a n d o n e d a p a r t m e n t s - M o r e c e n t r a l , h o w e v e r , a t least n t h "
c o r r e s p o n d e n c e o f C e l i n e a n d A l e x a n d r e , was a d e s i r e t o k e e p t h e f a m i y I
rring- ^xandre repeatediya s k e d - n d hL

silk. P r e s s o u r silk t h r o w e r s , " h e w r o t e o n M a r c h 24. " A b o u t t h e silk, q u i c k -
ly, quK.kly... u r g e n t , " lie w r o t e o n A p r i l 18, a n d o n t h e n e x t day: "Ab u t
Aai C f i ^ f Silk! A ' T aS m U C h aS POSSible! " is — L . necessar
t h a t y o u f i n d if n o t r a w silk, a t l e a s t w e f t y a r n , s e n d e v e n p a r t i a l l y p r e p a r e d
rovings, . . S p u r o n o u r silk t h r o w e r s also. T h i n k h o w w i t h o u t s k a o u r
f a c t o r i e s will b e s t o p p e d ! - O n t h e t w e n t y - f o u r t h , h e p r a i s e d h e r f o r hav-
hCr
incethe: " T " " , ^ — h as p o s s i b l e
s i n c e t h e y c o u l d b u y less later." E v e n in h i s l e t t e r o f A p r i l 2 9 i n w h i c h h e
d e m a n d e d t h a t s h e leave Paris, h e w e n t o n t o tell h e r a b o u t a t r i p h e h a d
just m a d e to search o u t m a r k e t s f o r the f u t u r e 9 2
keof!hneepWaS G , r m S , y ' , 0 : 7 1 p e , e m a n d r ^ o u r c e f u l businesswoman. She

k e p t t h e P a r i s s h o p o p e n , s h i p p e d silk w h e n e v e r s h e c o u l d , a n d by A p r i l
20 was bribing officials with twenty-sous pieces, and arguing her case (Si"
^ e s s f u U y ) w i t h t h e "very d e c o r a t e d " N a t i o n a l ( L a i d c o m m i
sioner of t h e t r a m s t a t i o n . - 0 „ t h e twenty-fourth w h e n she c o m p l a i n e d
of a s m a 1 n e r v o u s t r e m o r , " s h e r e p o r t e d t h a t b u s i n e s s was fine, a l t h o u g h
t h e s h o p l a c k e d m e r c h a n d i s e . 9 4 O n t h e twenty-sixth s h e r e p o r t e d t h a t A e
o t h e r m a n u f a c t u r e r s c o u l d n o t find w o r k e r s b e c a u s e t h e y ^ a d a,I j o n e d
t h e N a t i o n a l G u a r d , b u t s h e h e r s e l f a p p a r e n t l y still h a d w o r k e r s . - 1
d r e r e l i e d o n C e l i n e a n d was well a w a r e o f h e r c o m p e t e n c e , t a k i n g h e oe
in t h e b u s i n e s s , if n o t h e r safety, f o r g r a n t e d . O n M a y 1 2 h e w r o t e t o a
f r i e n d i n E t a m p e s t h a t C e l i n e h a d s p e n t a n " i n f e r n a l A p r i l in P a r i s , w h e r e
h e r p r e s e n c e was a b e n e f i t b e c a u s e o f t h e lively revival of b u s i n e s s . " 9 6
T h e p u b l i s h e d v e r s i o n s o f C e l i n e ' s l e t t e r s c o n t a i n little r e f l e c t i o n o n t h e
p o l i t i c a l a n d m i l i t a r y s t r u g g l e s o f t h e C o m m u n e . H e r a l l e g i a n c e t o Ver-
sailles is n o t i n d o u b t , h o w e v e r . S h e o p p o s e d t h e C o m m u n e ' s a r r e s t s o f
priests a n d n u n s , sympathized with those a r o u n d h e r w h o o p p o s e d the Na-
t i o n a l G u a r d , a n d c o n s i d e r e d h e r s e l f t h e social a n d i n t e l l e c t u a l s u p e r i o r
of t h e g u a r d s m e n a n d C o m m u n e officials w h o m she m e t . To h e r t h e m e n
s e e m e d m o r e like r e c a l c i t r a n t c h i l d r e n t h a n s e r i o u s o p p o n e n t s . T h e i r
" r a g e a g a i n s t r e l i g i o n " was " s t u p i d , " 9 7 a n d s h e b e l i e v e d s h e c o u l d o u t w i t
t h e m . I n d e e d , s h e d i d o u t w i t t h e m w h e n t h e y c a m e i n s e a r c h of A l e x a n -
d r e , a n d s h e f r e q u e n t l y s u c c e e d e d in s e n d i n g h i m silk d e s p i t e t h e o b s t a -
cles. W h e n s h e c o u l d n o t c o n v i n c e t h e o f f i c i a l s w i t h logic, s h e t r i e d b r i b -
i n g t h e m w i t h a l c o h o l a n d m o n e y . H e r tactics d i d n o t always w o r k , b u t s h e
f e l t n o c o m p u n c t i o n s a b o u t t r y i n g t h e m . S h e was a b o u r g e o i s e w h o k n e w
w h a t s h e w a n t e d a n d h o w t o g e t it. If t h e N a t i o n a l G u a r d t r i e d t o a r r e s t h e r ,
s h e h a d , s h e said, n o i n t e n t i o n o f a l l o w i n g h e r s e l f t o b e " t a k e n . " 9 8
T h e M a z a d e c o r r e s p o n d e n c e d o e s n o t a l l o w u s t o d e t e r m i n e fully t h e
g e n d e r c o n c e p t i o n s of C e l i n e a n d A l e x a n d r e a n d their friends. N e v e r t h e -
less, it is c l e a r t h a t t h e i r views w e r e c o m p l e x a n d v e r g e d o n t h e c o n t r a d i c -
tory. F o r t h i s y o u n g b o u r g e o i s c o u p l e , m a l e a n d f e m a l e s p h e r e s o f activity
w e r e n o t s h a r p l y d i f f e r e n t i a t e d , a l t h o u g h t h e r e was s o m e d i v i s i o n o f re-
s p o n s i b i l i t y b e t w e e n t h e m . A l e x a n d r e a p p e a r s t o h a v e b e e n t h e o n e t o trav-
el in s e a r c h o f s u p p l i e r s a n d c u s t o m e r s , a n d C e l i n e d e a l t w i t h t h e P a r i s i a n
e n d of t h e business. A l e x a n d r e clearly r e c o g n i z e d a n d relied u p o n C e l i n e ' s
e x p e r i e n c e a n d c o m p e t e n c e . S h e k n e w h o w t o r u n t h e f a m i l y ' s t e x t i l e busi-
n e s s a n d d i d it ably. I n d e e d , t h e visit by t h e N a t i o n a l G u a r d w h i c h p r e c i p -
i t a t e d A l e x a n d r e ' s p e r m a n e n t a b s e n c e f r o m P a r i s o c c u r r e d w h i l e s h e was
w o r k i n g in t h e s h o p . N o n e o f h e r f a m i l y o r f r i e n d s t h o u g h t h e r w o r k p e -
culiar. S h e was a r e s o u r c e f u l b u s i n e s s w o m a n a n d in h e r r i g h t f u l p l a c e .
D e s p i t e C e l i n e d e M a z a d e ' s c o m p e t e n c e a n d i n d e p e n d e n c e o f spirit, s h e
lived in a w o r l d t h a t a s s i g n e d c h a r a c t e r t r a i t s o n t h e basis o f sex. T h e s e as-
s i g n m e n t s w e r e n o t so r i g i d t h a t t h e y c o u l d n o t b e m a n i p u l a t e d in e x t r a -
o r d i n a r y c i r c u m s t a n c e s s u c h as t h e C o m m u n e , h o w e v e r . C o u r a g e is a n in-
t e r e s t i n g c a s e in p o i n t . W h e n V i c t o r P i l l o n , a n o t h e r m a n u f a c t u r e r ,
u n d e r t o o k t o p r a i s e t h e w o m e n w h o h a d r e m a i n e d in P a r i s , h e c o u l d o n l y
say t h a t t h e y h a d " d e m o n s t r a t e d a more than masculine c o u r a g e . " 9 9 T h i s
p r a i s e was n o t u n l i k e M a l o n ' s a n d R o s s e l ' s p r a i s e of "citoyen" A n d r e L e o .
T h e m u t u a l d e c i s i o n f o r t h e w o m e n t o r e m a i n i n P a r i s a l l o w e d t h e m to
possess t h e m a s c u l i n e virtue of c o u r a g e w i t h o u t b e c o m i n g u n f e m i n i n e .
The Femm.es Fortes of Paris
J43
B u t only temporarily. N o o n e in this b o u r g e o i s g r o u p e x p e c t e d o r w a n t e d

w o m e n t o b e m o r e c o u r a g e o u s t h a n m e n o n a d a i l y basis. N o r d i d t h e y
w a n t w o m e n t o b e e x a c t l y l i k e m e n i n o t h e r ways. A l e x a n d r e c o u l d a n d d i d
express b o t h his a n d Celine's sadness over t h e d e a t h of a f r i e n d ' s child
a n d h i s c o n c e r n f o r h e r safety, b u t h e r e v e a l e d n o p e r s o n a l f e a r s o r f a n c i e s
as C e l i n e d i d w h e n s h e w r o t e n o t e s a b o u t t h e c a t a n d r e v e a l e d t h e toll
t h e b o m b a r d m e n t w a s t a k i n g o n h e r . F e m i n i n i t y a n d m a s c u l i n i t y w e r e dis-
tinguishable, albeit occasionally overlapping, hierarchically related con-
cepts.
Notably missing f r o m Celine d e Mazade's p u b l i s h e d letters are refer-

ences to C o m m u n a r d w o m e n . She m e n t i o n s only s o m e w h o m a n a g e d to
f r e e a priest. T h e April posters a n d n e w s p a p e r articles alternately u r g i n g
w o m e n to take u p a r m s a n d to work f o r peace, the cantinieres a n d a m b u -
l a n c i e r e s w h o m a r c h e d t h r o u g h t h e city w i t h t h e t r o o p s , t h e c l u b o r a t o r s —
n o n e of these w o m e n w h o attracted the a t t e n t i o n of o t h e r b o u r g e o i s com-
m e n t a t o r s , i n c l u d i n g B l a n c h e c o t t e , a p p e a r i n h e r c o r r e s p o n d e n c e . It is
u n l i k e l y t h a t s h e a p p r o v e d o f a n y o f t h e s e w o m e n (with t h e e x c e p t i o n o f
those w h o called for peace), for she h a d n o sympathy for the C o m m u n e
a n d its s u p p o r t e r s . T h e d i f f e r e n c e s i n class i n t e r e s t s w e r e t o o g r e a t f o r h e r
t o b r i d g e . T h e C o m m u n a r d s w e r e h e r e n e m y , b u t s h e saw t h e m a s m o r e
i n e p t t h a n evil. S h e h a d n o wish t o t r e a t t h e m v e r y h a r s h l y . E v e n w h e n s h e
h a d h a d a b a d day, h e r m o s t f e r v e n t d e s i r e w a s f o r t h e i r i n c a r c e r a t i o n ( a
b y p r o d u c t o f v i c t o r y ) , n o t e x e c u t i o n . "I a m c o m i n g t o w i s h t h a t all t h e n a -
100
tional g u a r d s m e n w e r e p r i s o n e r s at Versailles," s h e w r o t e to A l e x a n d r e
B u t b y t h e e n d o f t h e C o m m u n e , C e l i n e d e M a z a d e h a d b e c o m e vin-
dictive, like m a n y o t h e r b o u r g e o i s w o m e n a n d m e n . B o m b a r d e d with re-
ports that petroleuses were b u r n i n g houses, fearful for their own h o m e s
a n d r e m o v e d f r o m P a r i s w i t h its c o l u m n s o f b e d r a g g l e d p r i s o n e r s a n d m a s s
e x e c u t i o n s , w o m e n a n d m e n a l i k e w e r e d r a w n t o v e n g e a n c e i n t h o u g h t if
n o t m d e e d . O n M a y 3 0 , a m o n t h a f t e r s h e h a d l e f t t h e city, C e l i n e h a d
c o m e to s u p p o r t t h e executions a n d mass arrests that were taking place,
a n d s h e m a d e n o e x c e p t i o n f o r w o m e n . S h e w r o t e t o a f r i e n d i n Paris- "I
never believed that these a b o m i n a b l e c o m m u n a r d s would b e such vandals
as t o c o m m i t t h e s e a t r o c i o u s d e e d s . I h o p e t h a t [ t h e g o v e r n m e n t ] will c o n -
t i n u e t o give n o m e r c y t o t h e s e m o n s t e r s , m e n a n d w o m e n , a n d t h a t t h e y
are going to take their c h i l d r e n a n d m a k e t h e m learn better senti-
ments."101 B e r t h e A m i a r d - F r o m e n t i n , a f r i e n d of the Mazades, expressed
even h a r s h e r sentiments. Writing to h e r f a t h e r o n April 29 f r o m Etampes,
s h e d e c l a r e d : "I h a v e finally o b t a i n e d a p a s s p o r t , a n d I i n t e n d t o l e a v e to-
m o r r o w m o r n i n g f o r P a r i s , t o s e e w i t h m y o w n e y e s t h e i r r e p a r a b l e disas-
ter! H o w t h e b l o o d f l o w e d a n d still flows! O n e is w i t h o u t p i t y f o r t h e s e mis-
erable incendiaries, a n d with reason O n t h e i r p a r t , it w a s a w a r t o t h e

d e a t h of those w h o are p r o p e r t y owners."102
W h a t b o u r g e o i s m e n t h o u g h t of b o u r g e o i s w o m e n w h o e x p r e s s e d vin-
dictive s e n t i m e n t s b u t r e m a i n e d i n a c t i v e is n o t c l e a r . A l e x a n d r e de
Mazade's inclusion of v e n g e f u l letters a m o n g those h e p u b l i s h e d suggests
h i s a p p r o v a l , b u t o n w h a t l e v e l is u n k n o w n . P e r h a p s h e ( a n d o t h e r b o u r -
g e o i s m e n ) r e g a r d e d s u c h f e e l i n g s as h u m a n , s h a r e d b y m e n a n d w o m e n
a l i k e . P e r h a p s h e a s s o c i a t e d t h e m w i t h w o m e n , r e g a r d i n g v e n g e a n c e as a
p e c u l i a r l y f e m a l e t r a i t . P e r h a p s h e v i e w e d t h e m as a n o t h e r a s p e c t o f
w o m e n ' s d e f e n s e of their h o m e s .
W h e n b o u r g e o i s w o m e n m o v e d f r o m a d v o c a t i n g " n o m e r c y " to inflict-
i n g p u n i s h m e n t , h o w e v e r , m a n y b o u r g e o i s m e n f o u n d t h e m s e l v e s as u n -
c o m f o r t a b l e w i t h t h i s " u n l a d y l i k e " b e h a v i o r as t h e y w e r e w i t h t h a t o f t h e
c o m m u n a r d e s . J o u r n a l i s t s , essayists, a n d o r d i n a r y c i t i z e n s d e s c r i b e d t h e
" l o n g c a r a v a n s o f p r i s o n e r s [ w h o ] w e r e t o b e s e e n w e n d i n g t h e i r way t o
Versailles, i n n o c e n t a n d g u i l t y a l i k e , t o t h e g r e a t d e l i g h t o f s u b s t a n t i a l cit-
i z e n s . . . [ w h o ] r e v e n g e d [ t h e m ] selves i n d i s c r i m i n a t e l y . " 1 0 3 M o s t o f t h e s e
observers singled o u t t h e b e h a v i o r of t h e w o m e n a m o n g these "substantial
c i t i z e n s " f o r c r i t i c i s m . G a s t o n C e r f b e e r , w h o w a s o n l y twelve y e a r s o l d i n
1 8 7 1 , r e c a l l e d i n 1 9 0 3 , " A b o v e all, t h e w o m e n w e r e w i t h o u t pity, s c r e a m -
i n g 'Kill t h e m ! T o d e a t h ! ' " 1 0 4 M a x i m e D u C a m p , o n e o f t h e C o m m u n e ' s
h a r s h e s t critics, r e p o r t e d t h a t " t h e w o m e n w e r e , as always, t h e m o s t agi-
tated; they b r o k e t h r o u g h military ranks a n d b e a t the prisoners with u m -
b r e l l a s , c r y i n g : Kill t h e assassins! B u r n t h e i n c e n d i a r i e s ! " 1 0 5
Whether the bourgeoises who taunted and abused the prisoners acted
i n a n y way d i f f e r e n t l y f r o m t h e m e n i n t h e c r o w d s is u n c l e a r . W h a t is c l e a r
is t h a t w o m e n ' s b e h a v i o r w a s p e r c e i v e d d i f f e r e n t l y . It m a y h a v e b e e n ac-
c e p t a b l e f o r w o m e n to p r o t e c t their h o m e s a n d families a n d to have fleet-
i n g h o p e s o f v e n g e a n c e , b u t it w a s n o t a c c e p t a b l e f o r t h e m t o a t t a c k m e n
a n d w o m e n w h o , as p r i s o n e r s , w e r e d e f i n e d as n o n t h r e a t e n i n g . T o s t r i k e
o u t at t h e m was to m o v e across t h e line f r o m d e f e n s e to o f f e n s e . F o r b o u r -
g e o i s m e n , as f o r t h e N a t i o n a l G u a r d c o m m a n d e r s w h o t r i e d t o k e e p
w o m e n away f r o m t h e f r o n t l i n e s , w o m e n w h o a c t e d a g g r e s s i v e l y h a d
crossed the b o u n d a r y between female a n d male behavior. This b o u n d a r y
d i d n o t c o n f i n e P a r i s i a n b o u r g e o i s w o m e n t o d o m e s t i c i t y i n 1 8 7 1 , as B o n -
n i e S m i t h h a s f o u n d it d i d i n n o r t h e r n F r a n c e . 1 0 6 A l e x a n d r e ' s r e l i a n c e o n
Celine to r u n the Parisian business a n d p r o t e c t their h o m e d e m o n s t r a t e s
t h a t it d i d n o t . B u t b o u r g e o i s c u l t u r e c e r t a i n l y d i d r e s t r i c t m i l i t a r y a n d vi-
o l e n t a c t i o n t o m e n . W h e n w o m e n a c t e d violently, t h e i r i d e n t i t y as w o m e n
w a s c a l l e d i n t o q u e s t i o n . S o , c o r r e l a t i v e l y , w a s m e n ' s i d e n t i t y . If w o m e n
w e r e n o t d e f e n s e l e s s (as b o t h t h e c o m m u n a r d e s a n d t h e v e n g e f u l b o u r -
geoises s e e m e d to d e m o n s t r a t e , t h e n m e n c o u l d n o t be their "natural"

p r o t e c t o r s . S i n c e t h e h e r o i c p a r t of m a l e identity was a l r e a d y shaky f o r
b o u r g e o i s m e n w h o h a d fled conscription a n d left their w o m e n b e h i n d ,
v e n g e f u l w o m e n p o s e d a serious t h r e a t to their sense of h o w society s h o u l d
work.
W h e r e a s A l e x a n d r e d e M a z a d e m a y have u n d e r s t o o d a n d s u p p o r t e d his
wife's vindictive feelings, Augustine-Melvine B l a n c h e c o t t e w o u l d n o t have.
She believed that w o m e n a n d m e n were fundamentally different f r o m each
o t h e r in this r e g a r d . F o r her, vindictive s e n t i m e n t s a n d actions in w o m e n
were i n c o m p r e h e n s i b l e a n d u n a c c e p t a b l e . S h e d i s a p p r o v e d of b o t h the
y o u n g c o m m u n a r d e s w h o s p u r r e d m e n o n to battle a n d bourgeoises w h o
t a u n t e d a n d a t t a c k e d prisoners. S h e h a d seen such b e h a v i o r o n May 3
w h e n s h e v i s i t e d Versailles, a n d s h e saw it a g a i n i n l a t e M a y a n d e a r l y J u n e .
Both times, powerless to stop the t a u n t i n g a n d attacking of prisoners, she
tried n o t to see a n d h e a r w h a t was g o i n g o n . F r o m h e r pacifist perspective,
s u c h a c t i o n ( a n d t h e t h o u g h t t h a t p r e c e d e d it) w a s w r o n g w h e t h e r d o n e
by m e n o r w o m e n . B u t h e r b i f u r c a t e d view o f m a l e a n d f e m a l e n a t u r e l e d
h e r to e x p e c t such behavior f r o m m e n a n d n o t f r o m w o m e n . Where
w o m e n w h o e n c o u r a g e d o r j o i n e d t h i s m a l e b e h a v i o r fit i n t e r m s o f g e n -
d e r was u n c l e a r , b u t they w e r e n o l o n g e r " t r u e w o m e n . " " C r e a t u r e s " was
t h e b e s t w o r d B l a n c h e c o t t e c o u l d c o m e u p w i t h t o d e s c r i b e t h e m a n d it
s e e m e d to d e n y their h u m a n i t y altogether.
Louise Michel
T h e m o s t f a m o u s f e m m e f o r t e of t h e C o m m u n e was t h e w o m a n w h o
s t e p p e d m o s t firmly a n d willingly across t h e g e n d e r line, L o u i s e M i c h e l . I n
t h e g r a n d t r a d i t i o n o f f e m a l e F r e n c h r e v o l u t i o n a r i e s , s h e w a s t h e illegiti-
m a t e d a u g h t e r of a n o b l e m a n . 1 0 7 B o r n o u t of w e d l o c k in 1 8 3 0 to Mari-
a n n e Michel, a d o m e s t i c servant, a n d L a u r e n t D e m a h i s , a y o u n g m a n of
n o b l e d e s c e n t w h o left his p a r e n t a l h o m e a f t e r Louise's birth, Louise
M i c h e l was raised by h e r m o t h e r a n d p a t e r n a l g r a n d p a r e n t s in the
D e m a h i s ' s ( f o r m e r l y d e Mahis) d e c a y i n g c h a t e a u in t h e village of Vron-
c o u r t in t h e H a u t e - M a r n e . S h e was allowed c o n s i d e r a b l e f r e e d o m by h e r
m o t h e r a n d the republican Demahises, a n d h e r c h i l d h o o d a p p e a r s to have
b e e n c a r e f r e e a n d h a p p y . W e l l - r e a d a n d e d u c a t e d as a t e a c h e r , s h e r a n a
variety of small schools in t h e H a u t e - M a r n e a n d t h e n m o v e d to Paris.108
M i c h e l ' s p o l i t i c a l activities b e g a n d u r i n g t h e l a t e r y e a r s o f t h e S e c o n d
E m p i r e . By 1 8 7 0 s h e w a s t r a v e l i n g i n r a d i c a l p o l i t i c a l c i r c l e s a n d e n j o y i n g
t h e f r i e n d s h i p of m e n like t h e m a y o r of M o n t m a r t r e , G e o r g e s C l e m e n c e a u ,
a n d the p o e t a n d novelist Victor H u g o , to w h o m she sent h e r poetry.

Deeply c o m m i t t e d to r e p u b l i c a n g o v e r n m e n t a n d social r e v o l u t i o n , s h e
o p p o s e d F r a n c e ' s d e c l a r a t i o n of war against Prussia a n d p a r t i c i p a t e d in
antigovernment demonstrations after the war h a d begun. In August she
a n d A n d r e L e o led a d e m o n s t r a t i o n of w o m e n to show s u p p o r t for the be-
s i e g e d city o f S t r a s b o u r g . W e l l v e r s e d , as all P a r i s i a n s s e e m t o h a v e b e e n ,
i n t h e p o w e r o f s y m b o l i c acts, t h e w o m e n m a r c h e d t o t h e S t r a s b o u r g stat-
u e in t h e p l a c e d e la C o n c o r d e , w h e r e they s i g n e d a b o o k of n a m e s a n d
p l a c e d it i n t h e l a p o f t h e s t a t u e . M i c h e l a n d L e o t h e n p r o c e e d e d t o t h e
H o t e l d e Ville, w h e r e t h e y d e m a n d e d w e a p o n s so t h e y a n d t h e other
w o m e n c o u l d go to Strasbourg's defense. T h i n k i n g t h e m quite m a d , t h e
a u t h o r i t i e s first a r r e s t e d t h e m a n d t h e n l e t t h e m g o . 1 0 9
T h e G o v e r n m e n t of N a t i o n a l Defense, which r e p l a c e d N a p o l e o n Ill's
g o v e r n m e n t o n S e p t e m b e r 4 , d i d little t o i n s p i r e t h e c o n f i d e n c e o r h o p e
o f r a d i c a l s l i k e L o u i s e M i c h e l , a n d so t h e i r p o l i t i c a l a c t i v i t i e s c o n t i n u e d .
D u r i n g t h e Prussian siege, Michel, h e r m o t h e r , a n d Malvina P o u l a i n r a n
t h e s c h o o l s h e h a d f o u n d e d in Paris, w h i c h n o w h a d two h u n d r e d s t u d e n t s ,
having t a k e n in t h e c h i l d r e n of families t h a t h a d s o u g h t r e f u g e in Paris d u r -
i n g t h e war. F o r t h e s e c h i l d r e n a n d f o r all t h e p e o p l e w h o c a m e t o h e r f o r
h e l p , Michel b e s e e c h e d C l e m e n c e a u , H u g o , M a l o n , a n d a n y o n e else w h o
w o u l d listen f o r f o o d . 1 1 0 S h e also p r e s i d e d over t h e W o m e n ' s Vigilance
C o m m i t t e e in M o n t m a r t r e , a t t e n d e d t h e m e e t i n g s of t h e M e n ' s Vigilance
C o m m i t t e e , 1 1 1 a n d was a m e m b e r of t h e Association f o r t h e R i g h t s of
W o m e n a n d t h e Society f o r t h e Victims of t h e War. S h e p r a c t i c e d marks-
m a n s h i p a t t h e city f a i r g r o u n d s , c a r r i e d a g u n , a n d j o i n e d t h e J a n u a r y 22
d e m o n s t r a t i o n that e n d e d in b l o o d s h e d at t h e H o t e l d e Ville.112
T h e d e m o n s t r a t i o n h a d b e e n called to protest the slaughter of Parisian
n a t i o n a l g u a r d s m e n a t B u z e n v a l o n J a n u a r y 19. W h e n t h e G o v e r n m e n t o f
National D e f e n s e h a d d e c i d e d to send t h e g u a r d into battle, t h e Parisians
h a d b e e n e l a t e d . E d m o n d d e G o n c o u r t h a d t h o u g h t it a " g r a n d a n d g l o -
rious sight, t h a t a r m y m a r c h i n g t o w a r d t h e c a n n o n s t h a t we c o u l d h e a r in
t h e d i s t a n c e , a n a r m y w i t h , i n its m i d s t , g r e y - b e a r d e d civilians w h o w e r e fa-
t h e r s , b e a r d l e s s y o u t h s w h o w e r e s o n s , a n d i n its o p e n r a n k s , w o m e n c a r -
r y i n g their h u s b a n d s ' o r their lovers' rifles s l u n g across their b a c k s . " 1 1 3
W h a t b e g a n so j o y f u l l y e n d e d i n s l a u g h t e r . O n t h e twenty-first, G o n c o u r t
n o t e d e l e g a n t l y t h a t P a r i s h a d b e c o m e s i l e n t . "I a m s t r u c k m o s t o f all," h e
w r o t e , "by t h e s i l e n c e , t h e s i l e n c e o f d e a t h , w h i c h a d i s a s t e r c r e a t e s i n a
g r e a t city. T o d a y o n e c a n n o l o n g e r h e a r P a r i s l i v i n g . " 1 1 4 T h e r a d i c a l s w e r e
n o t c o n t e n t t o m o u r n silently, h o w e v e r . I n s t e a d , t h e y m a r c h e d o n t h e H o -
tel d e V i l l e d e m a n d i n g t h e i n s t a l l a t i o n o f a c o m m u n a l g o v e r n m e n t a n d
p r o v o k e d t h e fire o f t h e B r e t o n g u a r d s s t a t i o n e d t h e r e . I n a f o r e s h a d o w -
The Femm.es Fortes of Paris
J43
ing of things to c o m e , Louise Michel, dressed in a N a t i o n a l G u a r d u n i f o r m

fired b a c k . 1 1 5
Michel's p a r t i c i p a t i o n in t h e C o m m u n e b e g a n at t h e b e g i n n i n g Sleep-
ing at the N a t i o n a l G u a r d post o n the r u e des Rosiers o n the n i g h t of
M a r c h 1 7 - 1 8 , s h e w a s a m o n g t h e first t o k n o w t h a t t h e a r m y t r o o p s h a d
invaded M o n t m a r t r e . W h e n G e o r g e s C l e m e n c e a u arrived to e x a m i n e the
w o u n d e d g u a r d s m a n T u r p i n , h e f o u n d h e r at his side. W h e n h e left to get
a s t r e t c h e r , M i c h e l s p r e a d t h e a l a r m , r u n n i n g d o w n t h e hill, h e r r i f l e u n -
d e r h e r coat, yelling, "Treason!" T h e n , h a v i n g played P a u l R e v e r e f o r t h e
f l e d g l i n g C o m m u n a r d s , s h e j o i n e d t h e t h r o n g as it c l i m b e d t h e hill t o c o n -
front General Lecomte's troops.116
H a d s h e b e e n a m a n , M i c h e l ' s activities d u r i n g t h e P r u s s i a n siege her

c o m m i t m e n t to revolution, a n d h e r p r o m i n e n c e in radical circles m i g h t
have r e s u l t e d in h e r e l e c t i o n to t h e C o m m u n e . S h e m i g h t even given h e r
c o m m i t m e n t t o t h e N a t i o n a l G u a r d , h a v e b e e n o n e o f its c o m m a n d e r s
Since s h e was a w o m a n , t h e s e f o r m a l political a n d military roles w e r e
closed to her. T h e barriers to g o v e r n m e n t a l a n d national g u a r d service did
n o t s t o p L o u i s e M i c h e l , however, S h e was e l a t e d with t h e C o m m u n e a n d
d e v o t e d h e r s e l f t o its s u r v i v a l . S h e d e b a t e d p o l i c y w i t h h e r f r i e n d s some
of w h o m h a d b e e n elected to the C o m m u n e ; p r e s i d e d over the Mont-
m a r t r e W o m e n ' s Vigilance Committee; a n d p r e p a r e d a plan for the reor-
ganization of e d u c a t i o n u n d e r the r e p u b l i c . 1 1 7
H e r c o m m i t m e n t t o t h e r e v o l u t i o n w a s g r e a t e r t h a n it w a s t o d e b a t i n g
a n d g o v e r n i n g , h o w e v e r , a n d a f t e r A p r i l 4 s h e d e v o t e d m o s t o f h e r time t o
t h e a r m e d s t r u g g l e a g a i n s t Versailles. S h e b e l i e v e d t h e C o m m u n a r d s
s h o u l d s e n d h e r to Versailles to assassinate T h i e r s . T h e o p h i l e F e r r e a n d
Raoul Rigault, a m o n g the m o s t violent of the C o m m u n e m e m b e r s per-
s u a d e d h e r n o t t o c a r r y o u t t h i s p l a n , b u t s h e t r a v e l e d t o V e r s a i l l e s anyway,
d r e s s e d as a r e s p e c t a b l e b o u r g e o i s e , j u s t t o p r o v e t h a t s h e c o u l d l e a v e a n d
r e e n t e r t h e city a n d t h a t s h e a c t u a l l y m i g h t h a v e b e e n a b l e t o kill T h i e r s if
they h a d wished h e r to.118
As h e r a c t i o n s o n J a n u a r y 22 h a d p r e s a g e d , L o u i s e M i c h e l b e c a m e t h e
great f e m a l e w a r r i o r of the C o m m u n e , alternately p e r f o r m i n g "men's
w o r k " a n d " w o m e n ' s w o r k " o n t h e b a t t l e f i e l d , firing a t t h e e n e m y a n d h e l p -
i n g t h e w o u n d e d . F r o m t h e m o m e n t t h e war b e t w e e n Versailles a n d Paris
b e g a n , s h e w a s i n t h e fray. T h e e a r l i e s t b a t t l e a c c o u n t s p r a i s e d h e r " h e r o -
ic c o n d u c t . " " C i t o y e n n e L o u i s e M i c h e l , " t h e n e w s p a p e r s r e p o r t e d "picked
u p t h e w o u n d e d u n d e r t h e royalist shells a n d , w h e n necessary, r e t u r n e d
M i c h e l f o u g h t with t h e 61st Battalion of M o n t m a r t r e in m a j o r battles at

Neuilly, L e s M o u l i n e a u x , C l a m a r t , a n d Issy. W h e n s h e w a s n o t f i g h t i n g , s h e
f o u n d p i a n o s a n d o r g a n s t o play, r e s c u e d stray a n i m a l s , c a r e d f o r t h e
w o u n d e d in t h e field, a n d h e l p e d o r g a n i z e a m b u l a n c e stations in t h e
city 120 D e s p i t e h e r c o n n e c t i o n s w i t h t h e C o m m u n e ' s m a l e l e a d e r s a n d h e r
r e p u t a t i o n as a t i r e l e s s s o l d i e r , h e r s e r v i c e s w e r e n o t always w e l c o m e d b y
t h e m e n w h o s e c a u s e s h e s h a r e d . W h e n t h e a m b u l a n c i e r e s of A n d r e L e o ' s
article a r r i v e d in Neuilly, t h e y d i s c o v e r e d t h a t L o u i s e M i c h e l was already
t h e r e a n d t h a t s h e , l i k e t h e m , h a d b e e n d e n i e d t h e r i g h t t o h e l p in a n y way.
W h e n a s k e d w h a t w a s h a p p e n i n g , s h e r e p o r t e d l y s a i d , "Ah! If t h e y w o u l d
e v e n p e r m i t m e t o c a r e f o r t h e w o u n d e d ! You w o u l d n o t b e l i e v e t h e o b -
stacles, t h e t o r m e n t s , t h e h o s t i l i t y . " 1 2 1
I n h e r m e m o i r s , M i c h e l c o n f e s s e d t h a t it w a s e x c i t e m e n t t h a t d r e w h e r
t o b a t t l e . "Was it s h e e r b r a v e r y t h a t c a u s e d m e t o b e so e n c h a n t e d w i t h t h e
s i g h t o f t h e b a t t e r e d Issy f o r t g l e a m i n g f a i n t l y i n t h e n i g h t , o r t h e s i g h t o f
o u r lines o n n i g h t m a n e u v e r s , . . . with t h e r e d t e e t h of t h e m a c h i n e g u n s
f l a s h i n g o n t h e h o r i z o n ? " s h e a s k e d r h e t o r i c a l l y . "It w a s n ' t b r a v e r y ; I j u s t
t h o u g h t it a b e a u t i f u l s i g h t . M y e y e s a n d m y h e a r t r e s p o n d e d , as d i d m y
e a r s t o t h e s o u n d o f t h e c a n n o n . O h , I ' m a s a v a g e all r i g h t , I l o v e t h e s m e l l
o f g u n p o w d e r , g r a p e s h o t f l y i n g t h r o u g h t h e air, b u t a b o v e all, I ' m d e v o t e d
to the Revolution."122
She d e f e n d e d the C o m m u n e to t h e end, patrolling a n d d e f e n d i n g t h e
M o n t m a r t r e cemetery and fighting b e h i n d the street barricades. W h e n the
w a r w a s l o s t a n d s h e w a s still alive, s h e c h a n g e d i n t o a c l e a n s k i r t w i t h o u t
b u l l e t h o l e s a n d w e n t in s e a r c h of h e r m o t h e r . At M a r i a n n e M i c h e l ' s h o u s e
t h e c o n c i e r g e told h e r t h a t soldiers h a d c o m e l o o k i n g f o r her, a n d "since
you w e r e n ' t h e r e , they took your m o t h e r to s h o o t in your place."123 Fran-
tic t o save h e r , M i c h e l r a n t o t h e n e a r e s t a r m y p o s t a n d f r o m t h e r e t o a n -
o t h e r ( a c c o m p a n i e d by soldiers), w h e r e s h e successfully s u b s t i t u t e d h e r s e l f
f o r h e r m o t h e r . N o w a p r i s o n e r , s h e was m a r c h e d to Versailles a n d h e l d f o r
trial.
M u c h of L o u i s e M i c h e l ' s e m o t i o n a l a n d m o r a l s u p p o r t c a m e from
w o m e n , h e r m o t h e r first a n d f o r e m o s t a m o n g t h e m . B e f o r e t h e C o m -
m u n e , s h e a n d M a r i a n n e w o r k e d a n d lived t o g e t h e r in M o n t m a r t r e . Like
m a n y a radical y o u n g w o m a n , she tried to p r o t e c t h e r m o t h e r f r o m the
m o s t d a n g e r o u s o f h e r activities a n d w r o t e h e r c h e e r f u l l e t t e r s t h a t w e r e
m e a n t t o c o n c e a l h e r u n d e r t a k i n g s as a s o l d i e r a n d a m b u l a n c i e r e . I t s e e m s
unlikely t h a t M a r i a n n e M i c h e l was m u c h d e c e i v e d o r m u c h c o m f o r t e d by
such ruses, b u t she s u p p o r t e d h e r d a u g h t e r n o matter what, helping h e r
w i t h h e r s c h o o l , s e a r c h i n g f o r h e r i n t h e c r o w d s o n M a r c h 18, v i s i t i n g h e r
in prison, a n d writing h e r letters in exile.124 H e r d e a t h in J a n u a r y 1885
plunged Louise into depression. Feeling responsible because she h a d not
b e e n t h e r e t o t a k e c a r e o f h e r f o r so m a n y y e a r s , s h e i n v o k e d h e r " d e a r
m o t h e r " a n d " p o o r m o t h e r " o v e r a n d o v e r a g a i n i n h e r m e m o i r s . Finally,

i n a s t a t e m e n t t h a t s p o k e a t l e a s t as m u c h t o h e r o w n g r i e f a n d l o n e l i n e s s
as it d i d t o h e r m o t h e r ' s p a s t e m o t i o n s , s h e l a m e n t e d t h a t " w h e n [ M a r i -
a n n e ] c a m e t o M o n t m a r t r e , all b r o k e n f r o m t h e d e a t h o f m y g r a n d m o t h -
er, t h e R e v o l u t i o n c a m e [ a n d ] I l e f t h e r a l o n e d u r i n g t h e l o n g e v e n i n g s ;
t h e n , t h e s e b e c a m e days, t h e n m o n t h s , t h e n y e a r s . P o o r m o t h e r ! " 1 2 5 O n e
wants to add, p o o r daughter.
As t h e a c c e p t e d , b u t illegitimate, g r a n d d a u g h t e r of t h e D e m a h i s family
a n d as t h e d i r e c t o r o f i m p o v e r i s h e d s c h o o l s , L o u i s e M i c h e l w a s a c c u s -
t o m e d t o c r o s s i n g class l i n e s a n d s e e k i n g s u p p o r t w h e r e v e r s h e c o u l d find
it. W h a t c o n c e r n e d h e r w e r e w o m e n ' s p o l i t i c s , n o t t h e i r class. " H e r o i c
w o m e n , " s h e d e c l a r e d i n h e r m e m o i r s , " w e r e f o u n d i n all s o c i a l p o s i -
t i o n s . " 1 2 6 S h e w a s c o m f o r t a b l e w i t h all o f t h e m . D u r i n g t h e s i e g e , a g r o u p
o f w o m e n " f r o m all s o c i a l c l a s s e s " f o r m e d t h e S o c i e t y f o r t h e V i c t i m s o f t h e
W a r a t M m e P o u l a i n ' s ecole professionnelle. "All o f t h e m w o u l d h a v e p r e -
f e r r e d d e a t h t o s u r r e n d e r , " s h e l a t e r w r o t e . " T h e y d i s p e n s e d all t h e a i d t h e y
c o u l d p r o c u r e , p l u n d e r i n g t h o s e w h o c o u l d b e p l u n d e r e d , saying: — P a r i s
m u s t resist, r e s i s t f o r e v e r . " 1 2 7 T h e S o c i e t y f o r t h e V i c t i m s o f t h e W a r w a s
o n e of t h r e e organizations Michel c r e a t e d with b o u r g e o i s a n d working-
class w o m e n . T h e o t h e r two w e r e t h e W o m e n ' s V i g i l a n c e C o m m i t t e e o f
M o n t m a r t r e a n d the Association for the Rights of W o m e n . H e r c o n t i n u i n g
respect for the w o m e n w h o w o r k e d with h e r a p p e a r s in h e r decision to
n a m e only t h o s e w h o r e m a i n e d p u b l i c radicals o r w h o later switched sides,
in h e r m e m o i r s . T h u s , w e l e a r n t h a t t h e f o u n d i n g g r o u p of t h e Association
f o r t h e Rights of W o m e n i n c l u d e d M m e J u l e s S i m o n ( t h e wife of T h i e r s ' s
minister of e d u c a t i o n ) a n d t h e radicals A n d r e L e o a n d Maria Deraismes,
b u t t h o s e w h o m i g h t h a v e b e e n h a r m e d by t h e i r a s s o c i a t i o n w i t h h e r a r e
i d e n t i f i e d o n l y as J e a n n e B a n d M a d a m e F . 1 2 8
M i c h e l was equally s u p p o r t i v e of working-class p r o s t i t u t e s w h o w a n t e d
t o h e l p t h e C o m m u n e . W h e n m e n o b j e c t e d t o t h e i r e m p l o y m e n t as a m -
b u l a n c i e r e s b e c a u s e they d i d n o t h a v e " p u r e h a n d s , " s h e was i n c e n s e d .
" W h o h a d m o r e r i g h t t o give t h e i r lives f o r t h e n e w [ w o r l d ] , " s h e a s k e d ,
"than those w h o were t h e m o s t w r e t c h e d victims of the o l d world?" In a
show of solidarity s h e divided h e r o w n r e d sash into smaller sashes f o r t h e
women, and f o u n d ambulance positions for t h e m t h r o u g h the W o m e n ' s
Vigilance Committee.129
I t is d i f f i c u l t t o d e t e r m i n e e x a c t l y w h a t M i c h e l t h o u g h t a b o u t h e r soci-
ety's c o n c e p t u a l i z a t i o n s of g e n d e r in 1 8 7 1 , since h e r r e f l e c t i o n s o n t h e
C o m m u n e w e r e w r i t t e n well a f t e r t h e f a c t . B u t h e r r e p o r t e d r e s p o n s e t o
t h e a m b u l a n c i e r e s in L e o ' s article a n d h e r f r i e n d s h i p with feminists like
L e o a n d Maria Desraimes ( o n e of the f o u n d e r s of the Association for the
Rights of W o m e n ) i n d i c a t e t h a t s h e was well a w a r e at t h e t i m e of t h e n o r m s

s h e w a s b r e a k i n g a n d o f m e n ' s d i s a p p r o v a l . By t h e m i d - t 8 8 o s w h e n s h e
w r o t e h e r m e m o i r s , s h e b a s e d h e r call f o r a n e n d t o d i s c r i m i n a t i o n a g a i n s t
w o m e n at least in p a r t o n h e r e x p e r i e n c e s d u r i n g t h e C o m m u n e . S h e k n e w
m a n y of h e r m a l e f r i e n d s h a d n o t c h a m p i o n e d w o m e n ' s rights in 1871.
"How m a n y times, have I g o n e to m e e t i n g s w h e r e w o m e n were excluded?"
she asked. "How m a n y times, d u r i n g the C o m m u n e , d i d I go, with a na-
tional g u a r d s m a n o r a soldier, to s o m e p l a c e w h e r e they h a r d l y e x p e c t e d
to have to c o n t e n d with a w o m a n ? " 1 3 0
By 1 8 8 6 M i c h e l b e l i e v e d d e e p l y t h a t a r e v o l u t i o n i n t h e p o s i t i o n o f
w o m e n w a s n e e d e d . S h e f o r e s a w a f u t u r e i n w h i c h " m e n a n d w o m e n will
w a l k t o g e t h e r t h r o u g h life, as g o o d c o m p a n i o n s , h a n d i n h a n d , n o l o n g e r
a r g u i n g . . . a b o u t w h o is s u p e r i o r t o w h o m . " 1 3 1 C h a l l e n g i n g m a l e r a d i c a l s ,
s h e a s k e d , "Are w e n o t b e s i d e y o u f i g h t i n g t h e g r e a t f i g h t , [ m a k i n g ] t h e
s u p r e m e s t r u g g l e ? Will y o u b e b o l d e n o u g h t o p l a y a p a r t i n t h e s t r u g g l e
f o r w o m e n ' s r i g h t s , a f t e r m e n a n d w o m e n h a v e w o n t h e r i g h t s o f all h u -
m a n i t y ? " 1 3 2 S h e k n e w t h e a n s w e r to this q u e s t i o n h a d b e e n " n o " in 1871.
Not only h a d she a n d o t h e r ambulancieres faced opposition f r o m the
c o m m a n d e r s o f t h e N a t i o n a l G u a r d b u t , s h e w r o t e in 1 8 8 6 , "at t h e [ m e e t -
i n g s ] o f t h e R i g h t s o f W o m e n , as e v e r y w h e r e w h e r e t h e m o s t a d v a n c e d o f
m e n a p p l a u d e d t h e i d e a o f e q u a l i t y , I n o t i c e d (I h a d n o t i c e d t h i s b e f o r e
a n d I h a v e n o t i c e d it s i n c e ) t h a t m e n , d e s p i t e t h e m s e l v e s , a n d b e c a u s e o f
t h e f o r c e o f c u s t o m a n d o l d p r e j u d i c e s , g a v e t h e a p p e a r a n c e o f h e l p i n g us,
b u t t h e y w e r e always c o n t e n t w i t h j u s t t h e a p p e a r a n c e . " 1 3 3
D e s p i t e t h e i r failings o n t h e q u e s t i o n of w o m e n ' s equality, M i c h e l h e l d
h e r m a l e c o m r a d e s in h i g h e s t e e m . S h e was especially r e s p e c t f u l of t h e
m e n w h o b e l o n g e d to the M o n t m a r t r e Vigilance Committee. D u r i n g the
P r u s s i a n s i e g e , s h e a t t e n d e d t h e i r m e e t i n g s as well as t h e w o m e n ' s m e e t -
ings, a n d s p e n t l o n g a f t e r n o o n s discussing issues with t h e m . "Never have I
s e e n m i n d s so d i r e c t , so u n p r e t e n t i o u s , a n d so e l e v a t e d , " s h e w r o t e i n h e r
m e m o i r s . " N e v e r h a v e I s e e n i n d i v i d u a l s so c l e a r h e a d e d . I d o n ' t k n o w h o w
t h i s g r o u p d i d it. T h e r e w e r e n o w e a k n e s s e s . " 1 3 4
She h a d generous praise for h e r female comrades, too, b u t whereas she
c o m p l i m e n t e d m e n for their intelligence, she l a u d e d w o m e n for their
c o u r a g e . "I s a l u t e . . . all t h e s e b r a v e w o m e n o f t h e v a n g u a r d , " s h e w r o t e i n
h e r m e m o i r s . " W a t c h o u t f o r t h e o l d w o r l d o n t h e d a y t h e w o m e n say,
T h a t ' s e n o u g h ! ' T h e y will n o t s l a c k o f f . S t r e n g t h f i n d s a r e f u g e i n t h e m ;
they are n o t w o r n out. Watch out for the w o m e n . F r o m Paule Minck w h o
c r o s s e s E u r o p e w a v i n g t h e f l a g o f liberty, t o t h e m o s t p e a c e f u l d a u g h t e r s
o f G a u l , s l e e p i n g i n t h e g r e a t r e s i g n a t i o n o f t h e f i e l d s . Yes, w a t c h o u t f o r
t h e w o m e n , w h e n they rise u p , d i s g u s t e d with e v e r y t h i n g t h a t h a s h a p -

p e n e d . O n t h a t day, t h i s [ w o r l d ] will e n d a n d t h e n e w will b e g i n . " 1 3 5
T h e d i f f e r e n c e s in h e r accolades for m e n a n d w o m e n reveal s o m e of
Michel's t h i n k i n g a b o u t g e n d e r differences. T h e m e n of t h e M o n t m a r t r e
V i g i l a n c e C o m m i t t e e , t h e finest m e n s h e k n e w , w e r e b r i l l i a n t . T h e y w e r e
theorists. W o m e n , in contrast, were courageous, strong, a n d practical.
T h e y k n e w w h a t n e e d e d to b e d o n e , a n d w h e n t h e a p p r o p r i a t e t i m e c a m e ,
t h e y w o u l d d o it, r e g a r d l e s s o f d a n g e r . I n h e r h i s t o r y o f t h e C o m m u n e , s h e
d e c l a r e d : " W o m e n d o n o t a s k if s o m e t h i n g is p o s s i b l e , b u t if it is u s e f u l ,
t h e n they d o it."136
M i c h e l was m o r e a n intuitive t h a n a systematic thinker. W h i l e s h e p r a i s e d
the w o m e n of t h e M o n t m a r t r e Vigilance C o m m i t t e e for their c o u r a g e , she
also believed t h e m to have h a d " r e m a r k a b l e intelligence." U n f o r t u n a t e l y ,
m o s t w o m e n d i d n o t h a v e t h e s a m e e d u c a t i o n as m e n . T h a t t h e y d i d n o t
s e e m e d n o n s e n s i c a l t o h e r , f o r t h e w o r l d n e e d e d w o m e n ' s i n t e l l i g e n c e : "I
have n e v e r u n d e r s t o o d w h y t h e r e was a sex w h o s e i n t e l l i g e n c e p e o p l e t r i e d
t o c r i p p l e as if t h e r e w e r e a l r e a d y t o o m u c h i n t e l l i g e n c e i n t h e w o r l d . " 1 3 7
M i c h e l ' s e m p h a s i s o n w o m e n ' s c o u r a g e w a s b o t h a r e f l e c t i o n o f h e r ex-
p e r i e n c e s d u r i n g t h e C o m m u n e a n d a criticism of h e r m a l e f r i e n d s w h o
h a d n o t believed in w o m e n ' s equality a n d h a d even o p p o s e d their efforts
to d e f e n d t h e C o m m u n e . B u t in praising t h e intelligence of t h e c o m m u -
n a r d s a n d t h e c o u r a g e of t h e c o m m u n a r d e s , s h e was also c o n t r a d i c t i n g
s t a n d a r d b o u r g e o i s c o n c e p t i o n s a n d prejudices. O n e expression of t h e
b o u r g e o i s n o t i o n of w o m a n h o o d can b e seen in B l a n c h e c o t t e ' s writings.
" R e a l w o m e n " s h r a n k f r o m w a r a n d t r i e d t o e n d it. T h e y d i d n o t w a n t t o
take u p a r m s to s u p p o r t any c a u s e . 1 3 8 M e n like Victor Pillon m i g h t p r a i s e
b o u r g e o i s w o m e n f o r t h e i r " m o r e t h a n m a s c u l i n e c o u r a g e , " 1 3 9 b u t it w a s
their e n d u r a n c e , n o t actions, t h a t was b e i n g praised. T o have g o n e f a r t h e r
would have b e e n u n f e m i n i n e a n d a b n o r m a l . Michel disagreed with these
a s s u m p t i o n s . S h e v i e w e d all w o m e n as p o t e n t i a l l y s t r o n g a n d c o u r a g e o u s .
F o r h e r , f e m i n i n i t y d i d n o t e n t a i l passivity, e n d u r a n c e , o r p a c i f i s m . S h e a l s o
disagreed with the conservative a s s u m p t i o n s that t h e leaders of t h e C o m -
m u n e h a d b e e n f a n a t i c s d r i v e n b y class p r e j u d i c e a n d e m o t i o n . S h e " k n e w "
t h e m to have b e e n rational political theorists motivated by h u m a n i t a r i a n
ideals.
M i c h e l ' s s t a t e m e n t s a b o u t m e n a n d w o m e n a r e s e l f - r e v e l a t o r y a n d self-
p r o t e c t i v e . S h e r e g a r d e d h e r s e l f a n d o t h e r w o m e n as t h e m e n ' s e q u a l s i n
t h e i r w i l l i n g n e s s t o d e f e n d t h e r e v o l u t i o n . H e r r e f u s a l t o m i n i m i z e h e r ac-
tions w h e n s h e was t r i e d in Versailles e a r n e d h e r t h e r i g h t to this o p i n i o n .
B u t h e r d e f e n s e o f w o m e n ' s c o u r a g e a n d a c t i v i s m c a n a l s o b e s e e n as a d e -
1 12
c l a r a t i o n t h a t s h e was like o t h e r w o m e n a n d t h a t s h e a n d they w e r e n o t ab-

n o r m a l , n o t , t o u s e t h e w o r d o f h e r day, " p a t h o l o g i c a l . " 1 4 0
W h e r e M i c h e l s u c c u m b e d to t h e c u l t u r e of h e r day was in s e e i n g h e r
m a l e c o l l e a g u e s as h e r i n t e l l e c t u a l s u p e r i o r s . S h e r e s p e c t e d t h e intelli-
g e n c e o f o t h e r w o m e n , h a d t h e s e l f - c o n f i d e n c e t o s e n d h e r p o e t r y t o Vic-
tor H u g o , t h e m o s t f a m o u s F r e n c h p o e t of h e r era, voiced h e r o p i n i o n s at
public meetings, c h a m p i o n e d female education, a n d believed the m e n
w e r e w r o n g a b o u t w o m e n ' s r i g h t s . Still, s h e b e l i e v e d m e n , o r a t l e a s t t h e s e
m e n , were s m a r t e r — n o t better educated, m o r e intelligent.
L o u i s e M i c h e l was, o f c o u r s e , a n e x t r a o r d i n a r y f e m m e f o r t e as h e r life
a n d e s p e c i a l l y h e r u n f l i n c h i n g d e f e n s e o f t h e C o m m u n e b e f o r e h e r ac-
c u s e r s i n V e r s a i l l e s d e m o n s t r a t e . S h e w a s r e p r e s e n t e d as e x t r a - o r n o n - o r -
dinary, too. Conservatives q u e s t i o n e d h e r femininity, thereby h o p i n g to
d i s c r e d i t h e r . T h e p o l i t i c a l L e f t , i n c o n t r a s t , saw h e r as t h e e m b o d i m e n t o f
t h e social r e v o l u t i o n . W h e n she r e t u r n e d f r o m exile, t h e c o n s e r v a t i v e p r e s s
called h e r "the a n g e l of p e t r o l , " "the virago of t h e r a b b l e , " a n d " q u e e n of
the scum," while F e r d i n a n d G a m b o n , a f o r m e r m e m b e r of the C o m m u n e ,
c o m p a r e d h e r with J e a n n e d'Arc, a n d E d m o n d Lepelletier r e p e a t e d the
identification in t g i i . 1 4 1
T h e m o s t l a s t i n g r e p r e s e n t a t i o n o f M i c h e l w a s t h e vierge rouge o r t h e R e d
Virgin. So c o m p e l l i n g was this i m a g e t h a t liberal a n d c o n s e r v a t i v e histori-
a n s h a v e u s e d it i n t h e i r h i s t o r i e s o f t h e C o m m u n e , e v e n t h o u g h t h e n i c k -
n a m e was n o t c r e a t e d u n t i l l o n g a f t e r . 1 4 2 T h e title a p p e a r s to h a v e d u a l ori-
g i n s . T h e j o u r n a l i s t F e l i c i e n C h a m p s a u r r e p r e s e n t e d M i c h e l as une nonne
rouge ( a r e d n u n ) w h e n s h e r e t u r n e d t o F r a n c e i n t h e g e n e r a l a m n e s t y o f
1 8 8 0 . D e v o i d of p e r s o n a l life aside f r o m h e r love f o r h e r m o t h e r a n d h e r
cats, s h e was d e v o t e d t o " t h e p e o p l e . " 1 4 3 T h e title w a s g i v e n v i s u a l s u b -
s t a n c e by caricaturist A l f r e d L e Petit in his cover illustration f o r C h a m p -
s a u r ' s a r t i c l e i n Les Contemporains (fig. 16). C l o t h i n g M i c h e l i n a r e d h a b i t
a n d large white wimple, p l a c i n g h e r right h a n d a r o u n d a rifle a n d h e r left
a r o u n d a w o u n d e d n a t i o n a l g u a r d s m a n , Petit c a p t u r e d t h e two sides of
M i c h e l ' s activities d u r i n g t h e C o m m u n e : s h e w a s b o t h w a r r i o r a n d n u r -
t u r e r . I n t h e c o n t r a d i c t i o n lay w h a t m a n y saw as h e r e s s e n c e a n d h e r d e -
v i a n c e . J u s t as s h e w a s n o t a t r u e n u n ( h e r c a u s e w a s r e v o l u t i o n , n o t reli-
g i o n ) , s h e w a s n o t a t r u e o r r e a l w o m a n ( s h e f o u g h t like a m a n ) .
In a separate b u t p e r h a p s related d e v e l o p m e n t , a terra-cotta statue of a
y o u n g girl was e r e c t e d o n t h e D u c o s P e n i n s u l a w h e r e M i c h e l a n d o t h e r
p r i s o n e r s w e r e h e l d w h e n t h e y first a r r i v e d i n N e w C a l e d o n i a . It w a s a
m e m o r i a l t o a y o u n g girl, E m m a P i f f a u l t , w h o d i e d t h e r e w h e n h e r f a m i l y
j o i n e d h e r d e p o r t e d C o m m u n a r d father. T h e color a n d subject m a t t e r of
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,f;n5"iBIEiTEUR = «• M*»«K, 81. no,, NKiiTO-ws-PKiTre^»*»«!, P*n«
LOUISE MICHEL
FIGURE 1 6 . Alfred Le Petit, "Louise Michel," Les Contemporains, no. 3, 1880.

112 Unruly Women of Paris
the statue led first to its being called "Red Virgin" and then to its identifi-
cation with Louise Michel. 1 4 4
Maurice Agulhon has suggested that with the creation of the Red Vir-
gin, "a new turning point had been reached in the fortunes of the allego-
ry of the Revolution." 1 4 5 At the very least, it was a new addition to the pan-
theon of female allegorical figures, although the identification of the Red
Virgin with a specific h u m a n woman sets it apart f r o m such representa-
tional figures as Marianne (the Republic), Paris, the C o m m u n e , and
France, which have n o identification with specific women. T h e Red Virgin
might represent revolution in general or the C o m m u n e in particular, but
she also always represents Louise Michel.
Both the Left and the Right used the image of the Red Virgin. For the
Left, the image was saintly and heroic, exemplifying unwavering devotion
to the social (red) revolution. It was thus that Michel's friends and the
crowds who came to hear her speak when she r e t u r n e d f r o m exile used
it. 1 4 b Historians, as mentioned, have repeated it. Pictures of h e r are almost
invariably identified as the Red Virgin. 1 4 7 Biographies often include the
phrase in the title. 1 4 8 Even the English translation of her memoirs is titled
The Red Virgin.149 O t h e r epithets—"the people's muse," "the virgin," "hero-
ine," "saint," "druidess," and "priestess of the revolution"—have b e e n less
popular, but writers have used them, too, to convey what they have seen as
h e r uniqueness. 1 5 0
For the C o m m u n e ' s critics, the Red Virgin was not a saint but a virago.
She was almost always described n o t as virginal but as lacking in feminini-
ty. Alistair H o m e , for instance, tells us that "the redoubtable merge rouge'
was "a familiar, somewhat masculine figure, stalking into churches to de-
m a n d money for the National Guard ambulances, wearing a wide red belt
and seldom without a rifle (with bayonet fixed) slung f r o m h e r shoulder."
In this representation, Michel marches through his history of the Com-
m u n e , "goading on the crowd" here, "escaping f r o m h e r captors" there,
and always "shooting to kill." 151
Whether she was represented by C o m m u n e supporters or critics, Louise
Michel was always the quintessential f e m m e forte of the C o m m u n e . Only
she was the Red Virgin. T h e image was uniquely appropriate since it rep-
resented h e r in terms of her political cause, simultaneously focusing at-
tention on her and on the social revolution to which she had dedicated h e r
life. W h e n she r e t u r n e d from exile in New Caledonia to a tumultuous pub-
lic reception, she presented herself as n o t wanting such attention. Refus-
ing an interview with L'Intransigeant, she explained, "You know that even
though I allowed myself to be the object of a reception, I want attention to
be addressed not to my personality, but to the Social Revolution and the
women of that Revolution." 15 * She eould n o t escape attention, however

nor, her biographer, Edith Thomas, has declared, did she really want to-
She n e e d e d to bathe in the crowd, to make direct contact with h e r en-
raptured or hostile, but always excited, listeners. She devoted herself to it
entirely. She sought [attention] out everywhere." 1 5 3 To a considerable ex-
tent, she had become her representation. She was the Red Virgin the liv-
ing representation of the C o m m u n e , for conservatives and radicals alike
I
T h e F e m m e s Fortes of Paris
Women's own writings present a more complex and contradictory pic-

ture of the experiences, ideas, goals, and personalities of the women who
lived through the C o m m u n e than the representations of women in male-
authored contemporary literature and histories. In their writings we can
see women responding to the events that touched their lives and chal-
lenged their sense of the world. Their responses involved attempts to or-
der and alter those events. Sometimes they argued and proposed to act
specifically as women; sometimes they acted with and virtually as m e n
Sometimes they were critical of m e n ' s treatment of women, which they de-
fined as oppression; sometimes they proposed to help men. At all times
they were involved in a complex negotiation with their culture's expecta-
tions and idealizations of w o m a n h o o d . Sometimes they c o n f o r m e d to
those expectattons and idealizations; sometimes they challenged and
&
broke them.
Bourgeoise Celine de Mazade revealed a playful and n u r t u r i n g side and
a religious devotion that fit h e r class's definition of femininity, but she did
not conform neatly to this role. She was also a skilled businesswoman who
led a far from domestic life. T h e r e is, for instance, n o mention of children
m h e r correspondence with Alexandre. Nor was she reticent in h e r en-
counters with the National Guard. Most important, perhaps, she revealed
a desire to wreak vengeance on the C o m m u n a r d s which accorded neither
with Christian morality n o r with cultural definitions of bourgeois femi-
ninity.
Augustine-Melvine Blanchecotte came close to acting out the role of the
bourgeoise, with h e r bifurcated notion of the nature of man and woman
and her almost religious commitment to pacifism. But she, too, violated
the n o r m s of her gender. She chafed u n d e r the notion that women's ideas
were of n o account and she published h e r diary because she wanted to af-
feet public policy.
Louise Michel, in contrast, willfully and gladly violated the n o r m s of fe-
male behavior. T h e opposite of a pacifist, she was drawn to the excitement

and danger of battle, carried a gun and used it to defend the C o m m u n e .
She also thrived o n intellectual debate and argued for women's rights to
education and jobs. She tended, however, to regard m e n as m o r e brilliant
than women and readily adopted n u r t u r i n g roles in relation to m e n , her
mother, and her famous cats. However m u c h conservatives denigrated h e r
as masculine, her n u r t u r i n g set h e r apart f r o m the m e n who were her
friends, as did h e r understanding of how badly women n e e d e d decent-pay-
ing jobs and good education.
Andre Leo's crossing of g e n d e r lines is revealed nowhere m o r e clearly
than in her pseudonym. While her writings show traces of some of the gen-
der conceptualizations of h e r age (she suggested, for instance, that women
could strengthen the morale of m e n and m a d e n o mention of the reverse),
she believed that m e n ' s denials of women's passion for the revolution and
civil rights were self-serving and hypocritical. She argued that women's pas-
sion for the revolution was the equal of m e n ' s and that only fools would
deny them the right to participate fully in d e f e n d i n g the great cause. She
considered herself the intellectual equal of men, in fact, the intellectual
superior of most of them, and she had n o compunctions about criticizing
them publicly.
T h e four women who spoke for themselves (rather than as the leader of
an organization, as Elizabeth Dmietrieff did) are difficult to categorize.
They shared characteristics and desires across class and political lines and
combined what others t h o u g h t were contradictory qualities. T h e most vi-
olent woman was the most nurturing. T h e pragmatic businesswoman was
religious. T h e feminist journalist wrote u n d e r a m a n ' s name. T h e quiet
pacifist wanted to save m e n f r o m themselves, sharing this activist agenda
with the journalist. T h e businesswoman and the revolutionary b o t h sup-
ported the violent measures taken by their respective sides. T h e intellec-
tual journalist was a mother. All four of t h e m spoke their minds and
thought the world would be better off if m e n would only listen to them.
They were the strong women of Paris, and unlike the stereotyped fragile
ladies and warrior amazons of C o m m u n e texts, they were complex h u m a n
beings.
C H A P T E R F I V E
Les Petroleuses
D u r i n g t h e final w e e k o f t h e C o m m u n e , w h e n t h e Versailles a n d
C o m m u n a r d t r o o p s f o u g h t in t h e s t r e e t s o f P a r i s a n d t h o u s a n d s o f
P a r i s i a n s lost t h e i r lives, o n e o f t h e m o s t p o w e r f u l p o l i t i c a l s y m b o l s
of t h e n i n e t e e n t h c e n t u r y was c r e a t e d — t h e p e t r o l e u s e . V i r t u a l l y over-
night, this r e p r e s e n t a t i o n of t h e d a n g e r o u s , u n r u l y f e m a l e i n c e n d i a r y
c a m e to s y m b o l i z e t h e evils o f t h e C o m m u n e f o r its critics. S h e c o u l d n o t
have b e e n i m a g i n e d w i t h o u t t h e fires t h a t b u r n e d f u r i o u s l y in p a r t s o f t h e
city, b u t s h e a l s o was t h e h e i r o f t h e f e m a l e r e p r e s e n t a t i o n s a l r e a d y c i r c u -
lating—the gun-wielding a m a z o n s , furies, viragoes, f e m a l e o r a t o r s a n d
c a n t i n i e r e s . T h e y p r e c e d e d h e r o n t h e C o m m u n e ' s s t a g e a n d m a d e it n o t
only p o s s i b l e b u t easy f o r t h e b o u r g e o i s i e t o b e l i e v e in h e r e x i s t e n c e
F o r c o n s e r v a t i v e s , t h e fires a n d t h e s i n i s t e r p e t r o l e u s e w e r e a g o d s e n d
since t h e y d i s t r a c t e d a t t e n t i o n f r o m t h e a r m y ' s s l a u g h t e r o f t h e P a r i s i a n s '
For t h e C o m m u n a r d s a n d t h e i r s u p p o r t e r s , t h e y w e r e a l b a t r o s s e s t h e y
c o u l d n o t t h r o w o f f . L o n g a f t e r it was a p p a r e n t b o t h t h a t t h e fires h a d b e e n
set by m e n a n d t h a t t h e y h a d n o t b e e n as d e v a s t a t i n g as was first b e l i e v e d ,
d e f e n d e r s of t h e C o m m u n e f o u n d themselves t r a p p e d into r e f u t i n g
charges t h a t they h a d h i r e d w o m e n to c o m m i t arson a n d destroy Paris
W i t h t h e c r e a t i o n o f t h e p e t r o l e u s e , t h e C o m m u n a r d s lost c o n t r o l o f sym-
bolic i m a g e r y a n d p r o p a g a n d a . D e s p i t e r e p e a t e d e f f o r t s , t h e C o m m u n a r d s
in exile w e r e u n a b l e t o s h i f t p u b l i c a t t e n t i o n t o t h e u n w i l l i n g n e s s o f Ver-
sailles to n e g o t i a t e o r t o t h e b o m b a r d m e n t o f Neuilly, t h e e x e c u t i o n s o f
p r i s o n e r s , a n d t h e e x t r a o r d i n a r y d e a t h toll o f t h e s e m a i n e s a n g l a n t e I n -
stead, t h e p e t r o l e u s e l i n g e r e d in p e o p l e ' s m i n d s , a p o w e r f u l p e r s o n i f i c a -
J
59
1 12
t i o n o f evil w i t h w h i c h t o c o n d e m n t h e C o m m u n e a n d t o q u e s t i o n t h e v e r y
n a t u r e o f w o m a n . W i t h t h e f i r e s a n d t h e e x e c u t i o n o f its h o s t a g e s , t h e C o m -
m u n e lost t h e s t r u g g l e f o r Paris a n d f o r t h e h e a r t s a n d m i n d s of t h e w o r l d .
T h e Semaine Sanglante
T h e V e r s a i l l e s f o r c e s i n v a d e d P a r i s o n t h e n i g h t o f M a y 2 1 - 2 2 . W e l l in-
d o c t r i n a t e d at Versailles to h a t e t h e i n s u r g e n t s of Paris a n d f o l l o w i n g or-
d e r s t o t a k e n o p r i s o n e r s , t h e y m o v e d m e t h o d i c a l l y t h r o u g h t h e city, k i l l i n g
working-class Parisians.1 H a r d l y b e t t e r p r e p a r e d to fight t h e a r m y in Paris
i n M a y t h a n it h a d b e e n t o a t t a c k V e r s a i l l e s i n M a r c h , t h e C o m m u n e a b a n -
d o n e d all a t t e m p t s a t a u n i f i e d r e s p o n s e a t t h e o u t s e t a n d c a l l e d f o r t h e d e -
f e n s e of t h e b a r r i c a d e s . O n t h e m o r n i n g of t h e twenty-second, C h a r l e s De-
lescluze, t h e gray e m i n e n c e of t h e C o m m u n e , a v e t e r a n of t h e R e v o l u t i o n
o f 1 8 4 8 a n d t h e C o m m u n e ' s l a s t civil d e l e g a t e o f war, d e c l a r e d , " E n o u g h
o f m i l i t a r i s m a n d s t a f f o f f i c e r s w i t h t h e i r g o l d - e m b r o i d e r e d u n i f o r m s . " It
w a s t i m e f o r " t h e p e o p l e " t o t a k e over. T h e y " k n o w n o t h i n g o f c l e v e r m a -
neuvers, b u t w h e n they have rifles in t h e i r h a n d s [ a n d ] c o b b l e s t o n e s u n -
d e r t h e i r f e e t , t h e y d o n o t f e a r all t h e s t r a t e g i e s o f t h e m o n a r c h i c a l s c h o o l .
To a r m s , citizens! T o arms!"2 In t h e a f t e r n o o n , t h e C o m m i t t e e of Public
S a f e t y f o l l o w e d suit, p l a c a r d i n g P a r i s w i t h its o w n call t o t h e b a r r i c a d e s :
"Rise u p , g o o d c i t i z e n s ! T o t h e b a r r i c a d e s ! T h e e n e m y is w i t h i n o u r walls.
D o n o t h e s i t a t e ! F o r w a r d ! F o r t h e r e p u b l i c , f o r t h e c o m m u n e a n d f o r lib-
erty! T o a r m s ! " 3
T h e m y s t i q u e of t h e b a r r i c a d e s was great. W i t h t h e m , Parisians h a d de-

f e a t e d k i n g s a n d w o n r e v o l u t i o n s i n 1 8 3 0 a n d 1 8 4 8 . 4 As M a r k T r a u g o t t h a s
o b s e r v e d , t h e y h a d b e c o m e "as m u c h a r e p r e s e n t a t i o n o f t h e r e v o l u t i o n -
a r y t r a d i t i o n as a n i n s t r u m e n t o f c o m b a t p u r e a n d s i m p l e . . . . [ t h e y ] m o -
bilize [d] p r o s p e c t i v e c o m b a t a n t s a n d r e i n f o r c e [d] t h e b o n d s of solidarity
a m o n g t h e m " by l i n k i n g t h e m with p r e c e d i n g g e n e r a t i o n s of r e v o l u t i o n -
aries w h o h a d similarly built a n d d e f e n d e d b a r r i c a d e s in Paris.5 I n t h e pre-
c e d i n g w e e k s , all o v e r t h e city, g r o u p s o f n a t i o n a l g u a r d s m e n h a d p o s e d i n
f r o n t of b a r r i c a d e s for p h o t o g r a p h e r s . 6 So t h e decision to fight f r o m t h e
b a r r i c a d e s w a s p o p u l a r , b u t it a l s o w o u l d b e d e a d l y , f o r t h e Commune
c o u l d n o t win at the b a r r i c a d e s against a well-trained a n d determined
army.
O n May 2 2 w o m e n a n d m e n , adults a n d c h i l d r e n r u s h e d to s t r e n g t h e n
t h e b a r r i c a d e s t h a t r e m a i n e d f r o m t h e M a r c h 18 c o n f r o n t a t i o n a n d t o
build n e w ones. Passersby (mainly j o u r n a l i s t s a n d b o u r g e o i s m e n who
c o u l d n o t resist t h e a l l u r e of battle) w e r e p r e s s e d i n t o service, b u t t h e C o m -
Les Petroleuses 161
m u n a r d s did most of the building. 7 Men and women labored with enthu-
siasm and optimism. E d m o n d de Goncourt saw a woman near the O p e r a
pulling u p paving stones, and Catulle Mendes watched a "tumultuous
swarm of men, women, and children, coming and going, carrying paving
stones" to construct a barricade o n the Chaussee-d'Antin. 8 In another part
of town, Augustine-Melvine Blanchecotte watched the building and de-
fending of a barricade on h e r street, and she too c o m m e n t e d on the fer-
vor of its builders and defenders. "I have a barricade at my door," she wrote
on the twenty-third. "Women and children built it to the tune of the Mar-
seillaise. Four others are being built, beside it, opposite it, to the right and
to the left of it T h e barricade guards, sentinels of the street, feverish-
ly watched the street all night; some of them have fallen f r o m fatigue." 9
As the shelling and fighting continued and "the ambulances passed, red
with blood," the building of the barricades intensified and the m o o d
t u r n e d somber. O n May 24 Blanchecotte reported, "Our barricade, judg-
ing f r o m the expressions of the guardsmen, is becoming serious They
have procured the m u r d e r o u s machines: a machine gun is already in-
stalled and a large c a n n o n awaits its place." 1 0
Similar scenes were repeated everywhere. T h e newspapers of May 24 ex-
tolled the courage and energy of the people as they prepared for battle.
(For most of the C o m m u n e press, this would be their final edition.) In the
Tribun du Peuple Lissagaray r e p o r t e d "along the entire line heroic courage,
fierce resolution. Men, women, children, have risen u p in all of the high
quartiers. This is the battle front that we present to the royalists." 11 Felix
Pyat's passionately p r o - C o m m u n e newspaper, Le Vengeur, r e p o r t e d that "on
the barricades, o n e sees women, children, and the elderly; everyone un-
derstands the grandeur of the battle and is united in a supreme effort." 1 2
The Journal Officiel reported that "the children construct the barricades
that their fathers defend, and women, themselves mothers, guns in their
hands, build u p the courage of the citizens by their words and actions." 1 3
In actuality, the batde had b e e n lost by the time the newspapers ap-
peared on the twenty-fourth, although the fighting would continue for sev-
eral m o r e days. T h e r e were to be n o victories and little g r a n d e u r for the
Communards, whose zeal was n o match for the Versailles troops' indoctri-
nation and training. Indeed, the desire of Versailles to send an unmistak-
able message to f u t u r e generations who might contemplate revolution,
combined with the C o m m u n a r d s ' knowledge that surrender meant not
just the death of their ideals but literal death, kept the battle for Paris go-
ing long after it was lost.
Even if they misjudged the possibility of victory, the newspapers were
right about the age and sex of the city's defenders. Women as well as men,
children as well as the elderly d e f e n d e d the barricades. 1 4 O n Blanche-

cotte's barricade, "a hardy, strapping boy of twenty years, with a very sweet
and fine figure," sat astride the c a n n o n during the day, waiting for the
Versaillais. At night, "old m e n who cannot fight as well as the young men,"
stood guard. This night, an old man, "who shivered u n d e r his thin jacket,"
had taken the watch. In the morning, "an old woman arrived, bringing him
his soup." W h e n the battle reached the barricade in the a f t e r n o o n , women
and national guardsmen d e f e n d e d it. "Women prepare the guns, the m e n
fire them," Blanchecotte observed before she retreated to the basement of
the building. W h e n she emerged, "there was blood everywhere; by the
doorways, by the sidewalks, a red rivulet ran," and the young artilleryman
who had sat "so dreamily, on his c a n n o n " the m o r n i n g before, lay a m o n g
the dead. 1 5
Louise Michel was present at the end of the C o m m u n e as she had b e e n
at the beginning, carrying a message from General Dombrowski to the
Montmartre Vigilance Committee, defending the Montmartre cemetery
with a d e t a c h m e n t of the National Guard, and fighting f r o m o n e barricade
to a n o t h e r with guardsmen and other women long after she knew the Com-
m u n e had been defeated. 1 6 In the working-class sections of the city, the
women who had worked together in the vigilance committees and the
Union des Femmes built and d e f e n d e d several barricades. 1 7 T h e barricade
at the place Blanche at the foot of the Montmartre cemetery was defend-
ed by women (see fig. 13). So, according to Lissagaray, were the intersec-
tions of the boulevard Saint-Michel and the rues Racine and de l'Ecole-de-
Medecine. 1 8
Those who fought, also died. O n May 24 Lissagaray watched children
fight alongside the m e n as they were p u s h e d back f r o m the Bourse to Saint-
Eustache. There, h e observed acerbically, "when the guardsmen were out-
flanked and massacred, the children had the h o n o r of not being exclud-
ed." 1 9 O n the twenty-fifth, he r e p o r t e d that "a young girl of nineteen,
Marie M...., dressed like a marine gunner, rosy and charming, with black
curly hair, fought all day," at the Chäteau-d'Eau barricade, only to be killed
by a shell that landed in front of her. 2 0
Sebastien Commissaire watched a company of young women, a r m e d
with chassepots, make their way toward o n e of the barricades in Mont-
martre. "The little column did n o t go far," he reported. "Arriving at the
place Pigalle, where there were the beginnings of a barricade, it was m e t
by lively gunfire from the boulevard Clichy. T h e n it was t u r n e d and taken
f r o m the flank by a battalion coming f r o m the rue des Abbesses and the
r u e H o u d o n . All of those who were part of this little troop were killed or
taken prisoner. From my window, I saw several of the women, whom I had
Les Petroleuses 161
seen go down the street with their arms a few m o m e n t s earlier, marched
back u p it, disarmed and s u r r o u n d e d by soldiers." 21
Louis Jezierski, a writer on military affairs, r e p o r t e d that there were a
"good many a r m e d women" a m o n g the C o m m u n a r d troops, including
"one small force composed entirely of women." 2 2 Archibald Forbes, the
foreign correspondent for the Daily News, heard that the place Vendöme
"had been held for hours by twenty-five Communists [sic] and a woman,"
and he saw the corpse of another "Hecate who fought on the Rue de la
Paix barricade with a persistence and fury of which many spoke." 2 3 Eliza-
beth Dmietrieff was wounded but escaped capture at the barricade of the
faubourg St. Antoine. 2 4
As rank-and-file guardsmen and civilians fought and died and the Com-
munal Council dithered, Raoul Rigault and Theophile Ferre, the angriest
and most violent of the elected m e m b e r s of the C o m m u n e , d e t e r m i n e d to
settle old scores and to avenge the massacre that was occurring all a r o u n d
them. Close to seventy prisoners held by the C o m m u n e would not survive
this quest for vengeance. 2 5 First, Rigault engineered the execution of Gus-
tave Chaudey, who had been in charge of the Hotel de Ville on J a n u a r y 22
when the Breton troops had fired on and killed demonstrators. Chaudey
had been imprisoned by the C o m m u n e because he had taken responsi-
bility for the decision, although h e had n o t given the order to fire. Ignor-
ing his declarations of his republican credentials and his pleas for mercy,
Rigault ordered his death. 2 6
Next, Ferre decided to execute some of the C o m m u n e ' s hostages who
were being held at La Roquette prison. 2 7 Six of them, including Monsig-
n o r Darboy, the archbishop of Paris, and J u d g e Bonjean, the president of
the Parisian courts, met their deaths o n the twenty-fourth. 2 8 Two days lat-
er, about fifty more La Roquette prisoners were marched through the
streets to the mairie of the twentieth arrondissement and then to the r u e
Haxo, where they were executed by a crowd of m e n and women seeking
their own revenge for the deaths of friends and kin. Jules Valles, editor of
the Cri du Peuple, and two other members of the C o m m u n e tried to pre-
vent what was soon known as the massacre of the rue Haxo. They knew full
well that this vengeance was immoral (even though Versailles was execut-
ing prisoners wholesale) and would be used as proof of the "evils" of the
C o m m u n e . 2 9 Among the thousands killed by the Versailles forces were
forty-two men, three women, and four children who were dragged to the
garden on the r u e des Rosiers where Generals Lecomte and Clement
T h o m a s died. There, they were forced to kneel before being shot. Deaths
like these, however senseless, had n o similar impact on public opinion,
however, since the victims were n o t public figures.30
112 Unruly Women of Paris
While the hostages died, the killing of the C o m m u n a r d s continued.

Those who f o u g h t on were hungry, tired, dirty, wounded, scorched by the
sun and then soaked by the rain that began to fall on the twenty-sixth,
forced to retreat f r o m barricade to barricade, and s u r r o u n d e d by corpses.
T h e best that might be said for the Communards, as Lissagaray noted, was
that they died well. 31 Those who f o u g h t were shot; those who surrendered
were shot; those who hid in houses were dragged into the streets and
shot, 3 2 until the last barricade fell on Monday, May 29, at eleven o'clock in
the morning. Even then, the killing did n o t stop; prisoners continued to
be taken, lined u p in parks and cemeteries, and mowed down by machine
guns. 3 3 Not everyone died immediately, of course, and at night, screams of
agony could be h e a r d f r o m the piles of bodies. 3 4
T h e C o m m u n a r d newspapers were n o longer publishing and the con-
servative French papers had n o journalists in Paris, but British journalists
roamed the city along with displaced C o m m u n a r d s and bourgeois ob-
servers. O n Tuesday, May 23, Archibald Forbes r e p o r t e d o n the sounds of
the battle:
About 10 the din began again. Shell after shell burst close to us in the Boule-
vard Haussmann, and there came the loud noise of a more distant fire, which
seemed to be sweeping the barricade. In the intervals of the shell fire was au-
dible the steady grunt of the mitrailleuses, and I could distinctly hear the ad-
jacent Boulevard Haussmann. This dismal din, so perplexing and bewilder-
ing, continued all night. 35
Lissagaray's account of the semaine sanglante often lapses into the first per-
son. As a C o m m u n a r d supporter, he emphasized the killing, along with the
noise and the fires. Writing about the night of the twenty-second (the end
of the first day of fighting), he reported, for instance, "with nightfall, the
fusillade slackens but the c a n n o n a d e continues. A red glow rises from the
rue de Rivoli. T h e Ministry of Finance burns. T h r o u g h o u t the day, it has
received part of the Versaillais shells aimed at the Tuileries terrace, and the
papers piled u p in its u p p e r stories have caught fire. . . . T h e n begin the
seven tragic nights. . . . T h e r e were nights m o r e noisy, more glaring, m o r e
grandiose, when the fires and the c a n n o n a d e enveloped all of Paris, but
n o n e penetrated the soul m o r e mournfully. . . . We seek each other in the
gloom, speak in low voices, giving and taking hope. . . . H e n c e f o r t h there
will be n o m o r e rest." 3 6
Blanchecotte spent the night of the twenty-third hiding with her neigh-
bors. H e r r e p o r t indicated n o lull in the fighting during the long hours of
the night. "The raking sound of the machine guns, the c a n n o n fire f r o m
Les Petroleuses 161
the Pantheon which shook the house, the screams of the shells, the furi-
ous fusillade that seemed as if it would break down the d o o r and let in the
bullets, the racket of the paving stones, the yells of the combattants, the
falling of bodies, the certainty of a nearby explosion, all this seemed to last
an eternity," 3 7 she wrote in her diary.
Conservatives and foreigners emphasized the damage to the city that be-
came visible with daylight. "Looking out, and cautiously, u p the Boulevard
Haussmann," Forbes continued, "I saw before m e a strange spectacle of
desolation. Lamp-posts, kiosks, and trees were shattered and torn down.
TJie road was strewn with the green boughs of trees which had b e e n cut by
the storm of shot and shell." 38 Goncourt wrote a similar account of the ru-
ins of Auteuil.
There is confusion and destruction such as a cyclone might make.

You see enormous broken trees whose shattered trunks look like a
bundle of kindling; pieces of rail weighing a hundred pounds that have been
thrown on the boulevard; manhole covers, lead plaques four inches thick,
reduced to fragments the size of a cube of sugar; bars of grillework twisted
and knotted around each other like the handle of a wicker basket. . . .
Underfoot there are unexploded shells, pieces of gun carriages, pieces
of cannons, broken boxes with 4 de M written on them, debris and slag of
every kind; in the middle of all this, water from the broken water mains gur-
gles like springs.39
T h e n u m b e r of Parisians killed by the soldiers during the semaine

sanglante and its aftermath is unknown, for thousands were buried in mass
graves without being counted or identified. Estimates range f r o m a low of
seventeen thousand by General Appert, who h e a d e d the National Assem-
bly investigation of the C o m m u n e , to a high of fifty thousand by various
newspapers. Most historians subscribe to a figure of twenty thousand to
thirty thousand, frequently settling o n twenty-five thousand. This count
does n o t include the fifteen thousand national guardsmen who were killed
by the Versailles troops before the invasion of Paris began. Whatever the
precise figure, the death toll was e n o r m o u s compared to Versailles' loss-
es—877 dead and 6,454 w o u n d e d . 4 0 It was also e n o r m o u s for the nine-
teenth century. In the Revolution of 1830, the army killed two thousand
Parisians; in the J u n e Days of 1848, between fifteen h u n d r e d and three
thousand, with h u n d r e d s more executed without trial. 41
As the mass executions continued, some journalists rebelled and filed
h o r r o r stories with their editors. O n J u n e 1 the New York Tribune carried a
lengthy story about the execution of a g r o u p of thirty-three "Communists,"
1 12
including seven women. T h e prisoners were "made to kneel close togeth-

er," and a large firing squad took aim. T h e n "a volley was fired, and when
the smoke cleared away a horrible sight was presented. T h r e e of the
women, who were in the middle of the row, between the men, were still liv-
ing, and writhing in agony. A second volley was fired and a third, and n o t
until the sixth did all the prisoners cease to live. T h e dead bodies were then
flung onto the three scavenger carts and carried away to be buried." O n
J u n e 10, it was still publishing accounts of the "vindictive" government
troops u n d e r the headline, "Paris after the Capture... Brutality of the Ver-
saillists." 42
Shorter reports, reflecting the journalists' growing dismay a p p e a r e d in
other newspapers. O n May 25 a New York Herald correspondent reported,
"The slaughter is awful." 4 3 O n the twenty-sixth the Daily News correspon-
dent revealed that some of the C o m m u n e ' s leaders had a p p r o a c h e d him
for help, and h e f o u n d it "heartrending to see the misery which has now
overtaken t h e m . . . and to be unable to d o anything for any one." 4 4 T h e
New York Times r e p o r t e d o n May 27 that "the slaughter of the Nationals
[Communards] is frightful and the Versaillists . . . are killing all prisoners,"
and continued on the twenty-ninth that "there are r u m o r s of awful cruel-
ties perpetrated by the Versaillists." 45 O n J u n e 1 the Standard published its
correspondent's opinion that "it is high time that these wholesale and in-
discriminate butcheries should cease." O n the fifth h e added that "the re-
m e m b r a n c e of the scenes of h o r r o r I have myself witnessed in the way of
reprisals makes m e s h u d d e r as I write." O n the seventh h e chastised the
Versailles troops for having shot people "down like dogs" and focused on
the treatment of women: "It is not too m u c h to say that a large proportion
of these victims, especially as regards women, had n o offence proved
against them." 4 6
T h e F e m a l e B a r r i c a d e Fighters
T h e female barricade fighters had symbolic as well as practical impor-

tance. T h e last news items in the last issues of two of the C o m m u n e ' s ma-
j o r publications emphasized the participation of women and children in
the building and defense of the barricades. 4 7
Although the fighting went on for several m o r e days, it was appropriate
that these newspapers' final words were about women and children. With
these reports, the C o m m u n e r e t u r n e d symbolically to its origins. Like the
women who had created the C o m m u n e by d e f e n d i n g the city's cannons
with their bodies, women were preparing to d e f e n d it on the barricades.
Les Petroleuses 161
Like the women of March 18 and like those who grieved for the dead and
wounded in the ensuing weeks, the barricade fighters were represented as
mothers. That they were a r m e d demonstrated their seriousness of pur-
pose, not their kinship with the C o m m u n e ' s m o r e controversial warriors
and female orators, whom even radical m e n f o u n d troubling allies. T h e
women wanted, Pyat said, "to make their children free." They were willing
to sacrifice themselves (and, if n e e d be, their children and husbands) for
the sake of the revolution. They did n o t relish the struggle or their own
participation in it. Their actions were n o t aggressive b u t defensive, n o t self-
serying but self-sacrificing, n o t self-centered but altruistic. Their nobility
and heroism symbolized the C o m m u n e .
Others would interpret women's presence on the barricades as a viola-
tion of their feminine nature, especially since they were a r m e d with guns
and bayonets. For these observers female combatants represented all that
was dangerous about women and all that was evil about the C o m m u n e . T h e
women's dangerousness was often represented in sexual terms. Catulle
Mendes was delighted to mention that a g r o u p of women "tucked their
skirts u p and passed t h e m through their belts," so they could pull a ma-
chine g u n down the street to a barricade; h e described t h e m as "livid, hor-
rible and superb." 4 8 Jezierski (and Vizetelly, who q u o t e d him) m e n t i o n e d
the short skirts worn by a "small force composed entirely of women." 4 9
Forbes wrote of the zeal and tenacity of o n e female fighter, 5 0 but not every-
one was convinced of the women's fighting ability. Jezierski and Vizetelly,
for instance, r e p o r t e d that "these Amazons" were "hardy and daring, but
at the last m o m e n t they shrank f r o m death." 5 1
In addition to the mothers of the barricades, C o m m u n e supporters pre-
sented other positive images of the revolution's female defenders. Lis-
sagaray described a cantiniere with a bloody handkerchief tied r o u n d h e r
head as a "wounded lionness" and wrote of "a young girl of nineteen, rosy
and charming, with black, curling hair, dressed as a marine fusilier," who
fought "desperately" on the barricades for a whole day. 52 Commissaire re-
ported on a "company of young women, a r m e d with chassepots, . . . bare-
h e a d e d and dressed in black," which m a d e its way pluckily toward battle,
and h e felt "pity and compassion" when he h e a r d o n e young woman con-
fess to a n o t h e r that the fusillade scared her. 5 3
Observers of all political positions shared o n e thing in c o m m o n , how-
ever, and that was an inability to ignore the female barricade fighter. Had
the C o m m u n e won the battle against Versailles, some image of her—a "li-
onness," a "rosy and charming" young woman, or a self-sacrificing moth-
er—might have taken its place alongside Delacroix's Liberty in the pan-
theon of revolutionary iconography. H a d the fighting not been accom-
1 12
panied by fires, a "livid, horrible, and superb" amazon of the barricades

might have become the C o m m u n e ' s negative representation. But the bar-
ricade fighters were eclipsed by a n o t h e r female figure who arose from the
ashes of Paris to become the personification of the C o m m u n e .
T h e Fires
T h e Versailles sweep through Paris began late on Sunday night, May 21.
At n o point did the battle go well for the Communards, although they did
manage to halt the troops' advance at various points. By n o o n of the twen-
ty-second, the army had captured the entire western side of Paris. Already,
Versailles's incendiary shells had started a fire at the Ministry of Finance,
and attempts to p u t it out had failed. As the army's shells continued to ig-
nite buildings, the C o m m u n a r d s added to the conflagration by setting fires
to cover their retreat. By nightfall of the twenty-third, fires b u r n e d f r o m
the Madeleine to the r u e de Rennes. T h e Palais Royal and the Louvre li-
brary had been set ablaze to halt the advance of the Versaillais, and the Tu-
ileries Palace, out of revenge against the monarchy whose restoration the
C o m m u n a r d s feared would now occur. O n Wednesday the twenty-fourth,
the Hotel de Ville was ignited as the C o m m u n a l Council, Committee of
Public Safety, and War Delegation a b a n d o n e d it, partly to conceal their re-
treat and partly to deny its conquest to Thiers. 5 4
Charred paper f r o m the Ministry of Finance and Louvre library floated
on the wind. T h e press r e p o r t e d that the m u s e u m itself was o n fire. Like a
reflection of the blood that ran in the streets, at night the city glowed red;
smoke, sparks, and ashes rained down o n the earth. For everyone who saw
them, the fires were, as Gibson recorded, "a sight such as we shall never
forget." 5 3 Journalists reported that it was "hard to breathe in an atmos-
p h e r e mainly of petroleum smoke" and that "the sun's heat is d o m i n a t e d
by the heat of the conflagration, and its rays by the smoke." 5 6
An American woman who had spent part of h e r childhood in Paris, in-
cluding the weeks of the C o m m u n e , later voiced a c o m m o n sentiment: "I
was often frightened during the C o m m u n e , but I d o n o t r e m e m b e r any-
thing more terrifying than the fires."57 Gaston Cerfbeer, also a child at the
time, r e m e m b e r e d later that a friend of his had pointed out "a stirring of
black things in the street moving rapidly. 'They are,' she told me, 'the rats
f r o m the ministry. Thousands of them, chased out by the fire.'"58
Goncourt's servant told him that she "slept with h e r clothes o n the whole
time, . . . and provided herself with a mattress to p u t on her back to pro-
Les Petroleuses 161
tect herself f r o m all that was falling outside f r o m overhead, in case the
, house was set on fire." 5 9
Observers who watched from outside Paris were perhaps even m o r e sus-
ceptible to r u m o r and alarm than those in the city. As they watched from
the hills outside Paris and snatched at bits of charred paper, they were con-
vinced that the entire city was b u r n i n g to the ground. T h e Standards cor-
respondent reported on the twenty-fourth that Versailles had "been in a
state of indescribable agitation" since an early hour. 6 0
W h e n the fighting ended, it became apparent that the fire damage was
n o t as great as had been imagined by either the journalists in the city or
those who had watched f r o m a distance. T h e Louvre museum, for instance,
had not b u r n e d . T h e special correspondent for the Standard of London
wrpte from Paris on May 30 that he was "convinced that the first exclama-
tion of the vast majority of those who may come over to see for themselves
the destruction wrought in Paris will be, 'How grossly these newspaper cor-
respondents have exaggerated.' H a d I n o t been in Paris myself on Wednes-
day and Thursday, witnessed the tremendous conflagrations, and heard
the unceasing crack of artillery, mitrailleuses, and musketry, I should cer-
tainly have myself been of the opinion that the accounts of what had tak-
en place had been, to say the least of it, highly coloured the damage is
exceedingly partial." 6 1
T h e damage to the C o m m u n e ' s reputation was a n o t h e r matter. Bour-
geois journalists, editorial writers, letter writers, and memoirists ignored
the killings and focused on the fires. They could not find e n o u g h terrible
things to say about the Communards. T h e Times opined that "the Red Re-
publicans of 1871 . . . have revealed a spirit too i n h u m a n to have been
credited beforehand, and by their last act they will be ' d a m n e d to ever-
lasting fame.'" 6 2 The Standard declared that "the recent news from Paris
has inspired the civilised world with disgust and horror. T h e destruction
of the beauty and splendour created by the art and taste of the most artis-
tic and tasteful people in the world . . . the wanton annihilation of the trea-
sures accumulated in the Tuileries . . . the yet more atrocious attempt to
destroy the Louvre . . . these are crimes u n p r e c e d e n t e d in m o d e r n histo-
ry, and only to be paralleled, and feebly paralleled, by some of the worst
atrocities of the barbarians who ravaged the various provinces of the de-
caying Empire of Rome." 6 3 T h e New York Herald called for m o r e execu-
tions: "Our advice is n o cessation of summary j u d g m e n t and summary ex-
ecution. Devils let loose f r o m their own place cannot be too soon sent
home Root them out, destroy them utterly, M. Thiers, if you would save
France. No mistaken humanity." 6 4 Celine de Mazade and h e r friend Berthe
112Unruly Women of Paris
Amiard-Fromentin voiced similar sentiments in letters. Mazade h o p e d that

the government would "continue to give n o mercy to these monsters," and
Amiard-Fromentin exclaimed, "How the blood flowed and still flows! O n e
is without pity for these miserable incendiaries." 6 5 These vindictive senti-
ments would linger for a long time.
T h e Petroleuses
How women came to be held responsible for the fires is the intriguing
question, since there is clear evidence that, while women may have partic-
ipated in the b u r n i n g of the Tuileries Palace, the vast majority of the fires
were set by m e n . 6 6 Indeed, women were n o t the first to be blamed. O n
Wednesday, May 24, Adolphe Thiers c o n d e m n e d the setting of the fires in
a speech to the National Assembly at Versailles. Ignoring the army's use of
incendiary shells as well as the inevitability of fires in a city u n d e r attack,
he blamed the C o m m u n a l Council and the National Guard: "These mis-
erable wretches have for a long time had a scheme to make Paris an im-
mense ruin in case their own plans did not succeed. They have set fires. . . .
T h e insurgents have m a d e use of petroleum. . . . These attrocious villains
. . . have tried to deliver the entire city u p to the flames. . . . They have d o n e
more: they have used petroleum bombs against o u r soldiers, and several of
them have b e e n wounded." 6 7 By Thursday, May 25, when the destruction
was t h o u g h t to be far greater than it actually was, the press began to focus
on vengeance rather than strategy and accident as the source of the fires.
T h e Times (whose political conservatism is revealed in its persistent use of
the term "Communist" rather than "Communard") declared that the fires
were "wrought without a shadow of provocation; . . . it is an act of deliber-
ate and demoniacal malice . . . a m e r e act of revenge, when the Commu-
nists saw their cause was ruined." 6 8 T h e editors of LeFigaro also subscribed
to the revenge theory when they began to publish again o n May 30. O n
the thirty-first, the p a p e r r e p o r t e d that the fire at the Ministry of Finance
(set by the incendiary shells of Versailles, not by the C o m m u n e ) "was care-
fully and diabolically prepared, kerosene bombs [bombes ä petrole] [and]
cartridges strewn everywhere, constantly rekindled the flames."69 T h e New
York Herald had a different theory—hereditary depravity. "Paris was always
peculiarly susceptible to communistic tendencies," it a n n o u n c e d on J u n e
4. "If the theory of hereditary depravity be correct, then we have an ex-
planation for the horrible ferocity and absurd idealism of the Paris mob.
T h e city was largely settled by desperadoes, to whom morals and religion
were idle, meaningless words, and their descendants have for centuries
m a d e the French capital the most disorderly metropolis in Europe." 7 0
Les Petroleuses 161
Rumors escalated and suspicion began to fall on noncombatants, in-

cluding male fire fighters, women, and children. T h e Times on May 26 and
Le Gaulois (a Versailles newspaper) o n May 29 r e p o r t e d that firemen had
been shot when it was discovered that they were p u m p i n g petroleum
rather than water into the flames, and both a n n o u n c e d that windows were
being barricaded to prevent the fire b o m b i n g of houses by women and chil-
dren. Walking through the city, the Times correspondent had discovered
that "the fears of petroleum and explosions are universal. T h e inhabitants
had either stopped up, or were engaged in stopping up, every chink through
which petroleum might be thrown into their houses T h e precaution
was taken because women and children, partisans of the C o m m u n e , have in
n u m e r o u s instances been detected throwing petroleum into houses." 7 1
Most suspicion fell on women. O n J u n e 3 Le Monde Illustre published
both a verbal and a visual representation of t h e m (see frontispiece.) "The
women show particular venom," it a n n o u n c e d . "These furies glide through
the rich quarters, profiting f r o m the darkness or the desertion of the
streets that the civil war has caused; and fling their little vials of petrol, their
devil's matches, their b u r n i n g rags [into cellar windows]." 7 2 E. B. Wash-
burne, the American minister to France, quoting an u n n a m e d source, gave
even m o r e detail:
Here is a description of a Petroleuse: "She walks with rapid step near the shad-
ow of the wall. She is poorly dressed; her age is between forty and fifty; her
forehead is bound up with a red checkered handkerchief, from which hang
meshes of uncombed hair. Her face is red, her eyes blurred, and she moves
with her eyes bent down. Her right hand is in her pocket, or in the bosom of
her half-buttoned dress; in the other hand she holds one of the high, narrow
tin cans in which milk is carried in Paris, but which now contains the petro-
leum. If the street is deserted she stops, consults a bit of dirty paper that she
holds in her hand, pauses a moment, then continues her way, steadily, with-
out haste. An hour afterward, a house is on fire in the street she has passed.
Such is the petroleuse."73
T h e fear of such treachery would keep the cellar windows of Paris closed
throughout the long h o t s u m m e r that followed the C o m m u n e . Yet, it was
absurd to be so fearful, as Colonel Wickham H o f f m a n of the U.S. Legation
pointed out: "The windows were barred, and the cellars in Paris are uni-
versally built in stone and concrete. How [the petroleuses] effected their
purpose u n d e r these circumstances is not readily seen. If this was their
modus operandi, they were the most inexpert incendiaries ever known." 7 4
Rumors about the n u m b e r of women involved grew rapidly. At first only
the isolated woman was suspected, but soon reports were claiming that
" m a n y " o f t h e a r r e s t e d w o m e n w e r e p e t r o l e u s e s . 7 5 O n M a y 2 8 a n d 2 9 Le
Gaulois r e p o r t e d t h a t m e n , w o m e n , a n d c h i l d r e n h a d b e e n p a i d t e n f r a n c s
p e r b u i l d i n g t o s t a r t fires. W a s h b u r n e r e p e a t e d t h i s s t o r y i n h i s m e m o i r s ,
e m b e l l i s h i n g it w i t h t h e " i n f o r m a t i o n " t h a t e i g h t t h o u s a n d m e n , w o m e n ,
a n d c h i l d r e n h a d b e e n e m p l o y e d t o d i s t r i b u t e i n c e n d i a r y d e v i c e s . 7 6 It
q u i c k l y b e c a m e c o m m o n p l a c e f o r n e w s p a p e r s t o r i e s a n d t h e titles o f illus-
t r a t i o n s t o r e f e r t o all o f t h e a r r e s t e d c o m m u n a r d e s as p e t r o l e u s e s , r e -
gardless of w h e t h e r they were c h a r g e d with the specific c r i m e of incendi-
arism.
T h e c r e d i b i l i t y o f t h e " r e p o r t s " w a s e n h a n c e d b y t h e i r specificity. Le
Gaulois was e s p e c i a l l y i n c l i n e d t o w a r d d e t a i l . O n M a y 2 8 it r e p o r t e d t h a t
t h e p e t r o l e u s e s w e r e " a r m e d w i t h t i n b o x e s , a b o u t t h e size o f a l a r g e sar-
d i n e c a n a n d c o n t a i n i n g a m i x t u r e o f k e r o s e n e [petrole], tallow, a n d s u l f u r , "
w h i c h t h e y lit w i t h a m a t c h . ( M o s t p e o p l e a c t u a l l y b e l i e v e d t h a t t h e w o m e n
c a r r i e d b o t t l e s , n o t b o x e s . ) O n t h e t w e n t y - n i n t h it r e p o r t e d t h a t d u r i n g t h e
m o n t h o f A p r i l t h e C o m m u n e h a d i n f i l t r a t e d "its m o s t f a n a t i c a l p a r t i s a n s "
into the r a n k s of the firemen " w h o s e m i s s i o n w a s t o stir u p t h e fires w h e n
they were b e g i n n i n g to die out."77
A l t h o u g h m e n w e r e a l s o t h o u g h t t o b e s e t t i n g fires, w o m e n w e r e w i d e l y
r e g a r d e d as m o r e a c t i v e t h a n m e n a n d as t h e g r e a t e r villains. M . C h a s t e l ,
a l i b r a r i a n , r e p o r t e d i n a l e t t e r o n W e d n e s d a y , M a y 2 4 , t h a t it w a s " e s p e -
cially t h e w o m e n w h o a r e s e t t i n g fires t o t h e h o u s e s . M a n y h a v e b e e n tak-
e n in t h e act a n d s h o t at o n c e . " 7 8 W a s h b u r n e d e c l a r e d in his m e m o i r , "Of
all t h i s a r m y o f b u r n e r s , t h e w o m e n w e r e t h e w o r s t . " 7 9
C h i l d r e n w e r e c o m m o n l y r e g a r d e d as w o m e n ' s a c c o m p l i c e s . W a s h -
b u r n e , f o r i n s t a n c e , a n n o u n c e d : " W h e n e v e r it w a s p o s s i b l e , t h e petroleuse,
w h o w a s t o r e c e i v e t e n f r a n c s f o r e v e r y t e n h o u s e s b u r n t , w o u l d find s o m e
little b o y o r girl w h o m s h e w o u l d t a k e by t h e h a n d a n d t o w h o m s h e w o u l d
give a b o t t l e o f t h e i n c e n d i a r y l i q u i d , w i t h i n s t r u c t i o n s t o s c a t t e r it i n c e r -
t a i n p l a c e s . " 8 0 C h i l d r e n as well as w o m e n , if t h e y w e r e d e e m e d s u s p i c i o u s
looking, were arrested and executed. Residents and journalists reported
s e e i n g t h e b o d i e s o f d e a d c h i l d r e n as well as c h i l d p r i s o n e r s . W a s h b u r n e
a n d H o f f m a n r e p o r t e d t h e d e a t h s o f six o r e i g h t c h i l d r e n ( t h e i r a c c o u n t s
vary), t h e e l d e s t " a p p a r e n t l y n o t o v e r f o u r t e e n , " w h o w e r e " c a u g h t " c a r r y -
i n g p e t r o l e u m i n t h e a v e n u e d ' A u t i n . 8 1 G e o r g e s R e n a r d r e m e m b e r e d see-
i n g a r o w o f d e a d w o m e n a n d c h i l d r e n l i n e d u p a l o n g t h e wall o f t h e C o l -
lege d e F r a n c e 8 2 G o n c o u r t r e c o r d e d in his d i a r y o n May 26, t h a t h e h a d
s e e n "a b a n d o f f r i g h t f u l s t r e e t u r c h i n s a n d i n c e n d i a r y h o o l i g a n s " w h o
w e r e b e i n g h e l d in t h e train station at Passy.83 O n May 28 C h a s t e l r e p o r t -
e d t h a t h e h a d s e e n a l a r g e n u m b e r of p r i s o n e r s i n c l u d i n g " w o m e n a n d
c h i l d r e n , w h o s o m e t i m e s w e r e o b l i g e d to r u n to k e e p u p with t h e rest, o r
Les Petroleuses 188 161
they would have b e e n t r a m p l e d o n by t h e horses."84 A n d o n the thirtieth

t h e Journal des Debats a n n o u n c e d t h a t g r o u p s o f " f i f t e e n t o t w e n t y n a t i o n a l
g u a r d s m e n , civilians, w o m e n a n d c h i l d r e n " w e r e b e i n g s y s t e m a t i c a l l y e x e -
c u t e d at the Place L o b a u . 8 5
W o m e n w e r e a c c u s e d o f o t h e r c r i m e s as well, m o s t n o t a b l y t h e p o i s o n -
i n g of t h e Versailles troops. T h e s e stories h a r k e d b a c k to J u l e s Allix's 1 8 7 0
p l a n t o a r m f e m a l e w a r r i o r s w i t h doigts prussiques. O n M a y 2 7 t h e Times r e -
p o r t e d t h a t t e n soldiers h a d b e e n p o i s o n e d by a c a n t i n i e r e ; o n May 2 8 Ed-
86
win C h i l d w r o t e to his f a t h e r t h a t forty m e n h a d b e e n p o i s o n e d Even-
t u a l l y t h e s t o r y o f t h e p o i s o n e r s a p p e a r e d i n all t h e n e w s p a p e r s c o v e r i n g
t h e fighting. A g a i n t h e n u m b e r of w o m e n a s s u m e d to b e involved in this
c r i m e a n d t h e n u m b e r of their victims escalated rapidly. T h e accusations
l a c k e d t h e s t a y i n g p o w e r o f t h e a c c u s a t i o n s o f i n c e n d i a r i s m i n a city t h a t
h a d s e e n h u g e fires, h o w e v e r , a n d t h e p r e s s a n d p u b l i c d e v o t e d f a r m o r e
attention to the petroleuses.
T h e Prisoners
T h e h o r r o r of the s e m a i n e sanglante d i d n o t e n d with t h e street fight-

i n g a n d e x e c u t i o n s i n P a r i s . T h o u s a n d s w e r e t a k e n t o V e r s a i l l e s t o b e in-
t e r r o g a t e d a n d tried. Young a n d old, m a l e a n d f e m a l e , s o m e w h e r e be-
t w e e n thirty-five t h o u s a n d a n d fifty t h o u s a n d w e r e m a r c h e d o u t o f t h e city,
g u a r d e d by soldiers, s o m e tied t o g e t h e r in g r o u p s with c o r d s , o t h e r s m a n -
acled in pairs.87 After a w e e k of steady fighting, t h e p r i s o n e r s w e r e ex-
h a u s t e d a n d b e d r a g g l e d e v e n b e f o r e t h e l o n g t r e k to Versailles b e g a n . J o u r -
nalists a n d m e m o i r i s t s r e c o r d e d t h e i r i m p r e s s i o n s of t h e p r i s o n e r s ' w e a r y
c o u n t e n a n c e s , t o r n clothing, dirty faces, a n d d r a g g i n g b o d i e s . 8 8
Male a n d f e m a l e prisoners alike were treated i n h u m a n e l y a n d humiliat-
ed. T h e y were f o r c e d to walk b a r e h e a d e d a n d w i t h o u t f o o d a n d water u n -
d e r the h o t May s u n a n d t h r o u g h d r e n c h i n g rain. T h o s e w h o c o u l d n o t
k e e p u p with t h e p a c e of t h e m a r c h a n d o t h e r s f o r n o d i s c e r n i b l e r e a s o n
w e r e e x e c u t e d a l o n g t h e r o a d s i d e . All w e r e s u b j e c t e d t o t h e t a u n t s a n d
a b u s e o f P a r i s i a n s a n d Versaillais w h o h a d o p p o s e d t h e C o m m u n e .
As e a r l y as t h e t w e n t y - f o u r t h t h e Daily News c o r r e s p o n d e n t r e p o r t e d t h a t
"the b e h a v i o r of t h e c r o w d was f a r m o r e h o r r i b l e [ t h a n t h e h o r r i b l e c o n -
dition of the prisoners], ' S h o o t t h e wretches!' they cried. 'Show t h e m n o
mercy! "'89 T h e librarian Chastel similarly r e p o r t e d t h a t t h e c r o w d "hoot-
e d " t h e p r i s o n e r s as t h e y p a s s e d a l o n g . 9 0 B i n g h a m , t h e Pall Mall Gazette
c o r r e s p o n d e n t , r e c o u n t e d i n h i s p u b l i s h e d d i a r y : " F o r m a n y a l o n g d a y af-
ter t h e i n s u r r e c t i o n was q u e l l e d l o n g c a r a v a n s of p r i s o n e r s w e r e to b e s e e n
1 12
w e n d i n g t h e i r way t o Versailles, i n n o c e n t a n d g u i l t y a l i k e , t o t h e g r e a t d e -
l i g h t o f s u b s t a n t i a l c i t i z e n s . . . [ w h o ] r e v e n g e d [ t h e m ] selves i n d i s c r i m i -
n a t e l y . " 9 1 T h e Times r e p o r t e d t h a t " e s c o r t s w i t h p r i s o n e r s a r e c o n t i n u a l l y
p a s s i n g t h r o u g h t h e s t r e e t s f o l l o w e d b y a j e e r i n g j o b . " 9 2 T h e New York Tri-
bune r e p e a t e d t h e s t o r y o n J u n e 7 f o r A m e r i c a n r e a d e r s . 9 3 E v e n Le Gaulois
r e p o r t e d t h a t " t h e c r o w d , e x a s p e r a t e d b y t h e p r e c e d i n g days, a c c o s t e d [ t h e
p r i s o n e r s ] with invectives a n d cries o f ' K i l l t h e m ! ' " a n d "even s o m e stones
were t h r o w n at the prisoners."94
M a n y f o u n d it p a i n f u l t o w a t c h t h e e x h a u s t e d a n d t a u n t e d p r i s o n e r s
t r u d g i n g t h r o u g h t h e s t r e e t s , o f t e n t o b e s h o t w i t h o u t trial. T h e Times c o r -
r e s p o n d e n t i n V e r s a i l l e s c a l l e d it a " h a r r o w i n g " e x p e r i e n c e ; G o n c o u r t s a i d
h e f e l t " h o r r o r " ; a n d B l a n c h e c o t t e w i s h e d t h a t s h e l i v e d o n t h e m o o n , so
s h e " w o u l d n o t h a v e t o e n c o u n t e r a n o t h e r o f t h e s e s a d p r o c e s s i o n s . 9 5 Still,
p e o p l e could n o t shake off their fascination with the prisoners a n d espe-
cially w i t h t h e p e t r o l e u s e s .
A c c o u n t s l i k e n e d t h e m to t h e F u r i e s of G r e e k m y t h , wild a n i m a l s , witch-
es, a n d m a d w o m e n , a n d d w e l l e d o n t h e u g l y a n d t h e b e a u t i f u l . G o n c o u r t
described a g r o u p of 6 6 w o m e n a n d 341 m e n :
Among the women there is the same variety [as among the men]. Some
women in silk dresses are next to a woman with a kerchief on her head. You
see middle-class women, working women, streetwalkers, one of whom wears
a National Guard uniform. Among all these faces there stands out the bes-
tial head of a creature, half of whose face is one big bruise. . . . Many of them
have the eyes of madwomen. 96
E d w i n C h i l d w r o t e to his f a t h e r o n May 28:
The women behaved like tigresses, throwing petroleum everywhere & dis-
tinguishing themselves by the fury with which they fought, a convoi [sic] of
nearly four thousand passed the Boulevards this afternoon, such figures you
never saw, blackened with powder, all in tatters and filthy dirty, a few with
chests exposed to show their sex, the women with their hair dishevelled & of
a most ferocious appearance. 97
T h e c o n s e r v a t i v e Paris-Journal r e p o r t e d o n May 31:
In the midst of the atrocious scenes that shock Paris, the women are partic-
ularly distinguished by their cruelty and rage; most of them are widows of
Communards. Madness seems to possess them; one sees them, their hair
down like furies, throwing boiling oil, furniture, paving stones, on' the sol-
Les Petroleuses
175
diers, and when they are taken, they throw themselves desperately on the bay-
onets and die still trying to fight.98
G i b s o n , w h o w a s n o t i n P a r i s d u r i n g t h e w e e k o f fighting a n d d i d n o t s e e
t h e p r i s o n e r s h i m s e l f , n e v e r t h e l e s s r e c o r d e d i n h i s d i a r y o n M a y 2 7 , "We
l e a r n t h a t w o m e n , m o r e like f u r i e s t h a n h u m a n b e i n g s , h a v e t a k e n a
fiendish p a r t in t h e w o r k of d e s t r u c t i o n . " 9 9 B i n g h a m called t h e f e m a l e pris-
oners "hideous viragoes,. . . furies intoxicated with the f u m e s of wine a n d
b l o o d . " 1 0 0 T h e R e v e r e n d Mr. U s s h e r of Westbury, w h o was m o r e sympa-
thetic t h a n B i n g h a m , n e v e r t h e l e s s told E r n e s t Vizetelly t h a t h e was "par-
ticularly s t r u c k by t h e awful expressions which he noticed on the
[ w o m e n ' s ] f a c e s . . . . I t was, i n d e e d , f o r t h e m o s t p a r t s o m e t h i n g u n n a t u r -
al, a c o m p o u n d of savagery, r e v e n g e f u l n e s s , d e s p a i r a n d ecstatic fer-
vour. . . . M a n y of t h e m w e r e n o w s h e e r furies."101
T h e New York Tribune c o r r e s p o n d e n t s i m i l a r l y s i n g l e d o u t w o m e n w h e n
h e r e p o r t e d b r i e f l y o n M a y 2 6 t h a t h e saw "a l o n g file o f p r i s o n e r s p a s s ,
m a n y f i e r c e w o m e n a n d s o f t girls, all b a r e - h e a d e d a n d b e g r i m e d , l i n k i n g
a r m s w i t h [ o n e a n o t h e r ] p r o u d l y as t h e y m a r c h e d . " 1 0 2 LeFigaro i n a n arti-
cle a b o u t t h e last g r o u p o f p r i s o n e r s t o b e m a r c h e d f r o m P a r i s t o Versailles,
o n J u n e 2, d e c l a r e d t h a t t h e j o u r n a l i s t s w e r e n o t a l o n e i n t h e i r f a s c i n a t i o n
with t h e f e m a l e prisoners. T h e c r o w d h a d t h e greatest interest in t h e
w o m e n , w h o c a m e a f t e r t h e m e n , it r e p o r t e d . It w a s l o o k i n g f o r t h e
p e t r o l e u s e s . W h e n p e o p l e saw t h e m , t h e y " d e v o u r e d t h e m w i t h t h e i r e y e s , "
a n d "they tried to discern t h e l e a d e r s w h o h a d i n s p i r e d this terrible battle
in t h e s i n i s t e r h e a d s o f t h e s e w i t c h e s ; t h e y s t a r e d a t t h e h a n d s t h a t h a d
p o u r e d t h e i n c e n d i a r y p e t r o l e u m o n t h e m o n u m e n t s of P a r i s . " 1 0 3
Many contrasted the w o m e n ' s d e m e a n o r a n d behavior, b o t h b e f o r e and
a f t e r c a p t u r e , to t h a t of t h e i r m a l e c o m r a d e s . G o n c o u r t f o u n d t h a t n o n e
o f t h e a r r e s t e d w o m e n h a d t h e s a m e " a p a t h e t i c r e s i g n a t i o n " as t h e m e n .
" T h e r e is a n g e r a n d i r o n y o n t h e i r f a c e s . " 1 0 4 Le Figaro r e p o r t e d t h a t t h e
w o m e n a n d c h i l d r e n in t h e convoys of p r i s o n e r s " m a r c h e d with a h a r d i e r
step t h a n the m e n . . . . T h e m e n are m o r e s o l e m n a n d s e e m to be asking
t h e m s e l v e s if it w o u l d n o t h a v e b e e n b e t t e r t o t h i n k b e f o r e s e r v i n g a g a i n s t
their b r o t h e r s in t h e army." T h e o l d e r w o m e n , in particular, w e r e pre-
s e n t e d as u n b o w e d . " T h e i r m o u t h s h a v e a k i n d o f s a r d o n i c s m i l e ; t h e i r
feverish eyes glow like h o t coals. O n e of t h e m r e g a r d s t h e c r o w d with t h e
g l a z e d e y e s o f a d e a d p e r s o n a n d s e e m s p l a c e d t h e r e t o p e r s o n i f y t h e sin-
ister tricoteuse o f t h e r e v o l u t i o n a r y t r i b u n a l s . " 1 0 5 T h e Times c o r r e s p o n d e n t
reflected on the fighting, "More courageous than the m e n , the w o m e n
s h o w fight t o t h e last m o m e n t , a n d m e e t t h e i r d e a t h , a c c o r d i n g t o t h e ac-
counts of those w h o have witnessed their executions, with an u n d a u n t e d
1 12
courage."106 In contrast to the w o m e n , the male prisoners w h o m a r c h

t h r o u g h t h e p a g e s o f t h e Times " a r e d e p r e s s e d , w a l k w i t h b o w e d h e a d , a n d
shedding tears, which trace muddy streaks down their blackened
107
cheeks."
G o n c o u r t e v e n m a n a g e d t o s e e t h e w o m e n ' s d e m e a n o r as s e x u a l l y
provocative; certainly h e a t t r i b u t e d n o such attitude to any of t h e m e n :
The rain increases. Some of the women pull up their skirts to cover their
heads. A line of horsemen in white coats has reinforced the line of foot sol-
diers. The colonel. . . shouts: "Attention!" and the African infantrymen load
their guns. At this moment the women think they are going to be shot and
one of them collapses with an attack of nerves. But the terror lasts only a mo-
ment; they quickly renew their irony, and some their coquetry with the sol-
diers. 108
Gender and Judgment
T h e h e r o i c m o t h e r s a n d s p l e n d i d t i g r e s s e s o f P y a t , Lissagaray, a n d t h e
e d i t o r s o f t h e Journal Officiel w e r e n o m a t c h f o r t h e f u r i e s , m a d w o m e n ,
witches, h a r p i e s , seductresses, a n d p e t r o l e u s e s of t h e conservatives. For-
getting, o r p e r h a p s n e v e r u n d e r s t a n d i n g in t h e first place, t h e political
grievances t h a t h a d t r i g g e r e d t h e revolt, t h e lack of v i o l e n c e with w h i c h the
C o m m u n a l C o u n c i l h a d g o v e r n e d t h e city, a n d t h e n o - p r i s o n e r s p o l i c y o f
the national g o v e r n m e n t which h a d p r o l o n g e d the semaine sanglante,
b o u r g e o i s m e n a n d w o m e n w e r e o b s e s s e d with r e p r e s e n t a t i o n s of t h e
w o m e n o n t h e b a r r i c a d e s as i m m o r a l a n d u n n a t u r a l . C h i l d r e n a n d m e n
h a d c o m m i t t e d crimes, too, b u t their actions (and, h e n c e , they them-
selves) w e r e r a r e l y s e e n as q u i t e s o evil.
U n d i s t r a c t e d b y t h e m i s e r y a n d h u m a n i t y o f t h e p r i s o n e r s , e d i t o r i a l writ-
ers a n d columnists far f r o m the scene voiced opinions a b o u t the w o m e n .
F r a n c i s q u e Sarcey, a n u l t r a c o n s e r v a t i v e c o l u m n i s t f o r Le Gaulois, offered
his r e a d e r s t h e analysis of a physician o n May 28, while t h e killing of C o m -
m u n a r d s w a s f a r f r o m over. I n h i s view, t h e w o m e n , o r a t l e a s t m o s t o f t h e m ,
h a d n o t set fires f o r m o n e y . O n t h e contrary, they h a d b e e n " u n d e r t h e epi-
d e m i c i n f l u e n c e o f t h e i n c e n d i a r y m a n i a , " w h i c h t h e d o c t o r s u g g e s t e d , re-
sulted n o t f r o m willfulness b u t f r o m t h e m i s e r y of t h e Prussian siege. " T h e
r e v o l t o f M a r c h 18 s t r u c k t h e last b l o w t o t h o s e a l r e a d y d i s t u r b e d b r a i n s ;
a n d t h e m e n t a l d e r a n g e m e n t e n d e d in a violent explosion, seizing at t h e
t i m e t h e l a r g e s t p a r t o f t h e p o p u l a t i o n . I t is o n e o f t h e m o s t a s t o n i s h i n g
c a s e s t h a t p h y s i o l o g i s t s h a v e o b s e r v e d , t h i s e p i d e m i c o f m a d n e s s , w h i c h is
Les Petroleuses 177
well k n o w n t o medecins alienistes [ p s y c h i a t r i s t s ] . " H a v i n g l a i d o u t t h i s " m e d -

ical" t h e o r y o f folie contagieuse ( c o n t a g i o u s insanity), t h e d o c t o r (and
S a r c e y ) t h e n e x p l a i n e d w o m e n ' s i n v o l v e m e n t in t h e s e t t i n g o f fires: " T h e
w o m e n c a r r y in this attack of m a d n e s s a n exaltation m o r e f e r o c i o u s t h a n
t h e m e n ; it is b e c a u s e t h e y h a v e a m o r e d e v e l o p e d n e r v o u s s y s t e m ; it is t h a t
t h e i r b r a i n is w e a k e r a n d t h e i r s e n s i b i l i t y m o r e lively. T h e y a l s o a r e o n e
h u n d r e d times m o r e dangerous, a n d they have caused without any d o u b t
m u c h m o r e evil."109 Sarcey h a d reservations a b o u t t h e implications of this
t h e o r y f o r r e t r i b u t i o n (if t h e w o m e n w e r e m a d , p u n i s h m e n t m i g h t n o t b e
a p p r o p r i a t e ) , b u t h e was absolutely c o n v i n c e d t h a t t h e w o m e n w e r e m o r e
d a n g e r o u s a n d h a d c a u s e d m o r e evil t h a n t h e m e n .
T w o w e e k s later, h e r e t u r n e d t o t h e q u e s t i o n a g a i n . T h i s t i m e h i s e x p e r t s
were m e n "whose j u d g m e n t a n d w o r d " h e c o u l d n o t d o u b t a n d w h o h a d
"spoken with h i m with an a s t o n i s h m e n t m i n g l e d with h o r r o r of the scenes
t h e y h a d s e e n , s e e n w i t h t h e i r o w n e y e s . " T h e s e u n i m p e a c h a b l e eyewit-
nesses h a d told h i m of "young w o m e n , with pretty faces a n d d r e s s e d in
silk," w h o h a d c o m e d o w n t h e s t r e e t a r m e d w i t h r e v o l v e r s , " f i r i n g a t r a n -
d o m " a n d a s k i n g , "with p r o u d m i e n , l o u d v o i c e s , a n d h a t e - f i l l e d e y e s , " t o
b e shot. W h e n t h e soldiers a c c o m m o d a t e d t h e m , they d i e d , with "insults
o n t h e i r lips [ a n d ] c o n t e m p t u o u s l a u g h s , l i k e m a r t y r s w h o , i n s a c r i f i c i n g
themselves, a c c o m p l i s h a great duty." Sarcey f o u n d m u c h to c o n t e m p l a t e
in t h i s r e p o r t . 1 1 0
W h e t h e r t h e silk d r e s s e s o f t h e w o m e n m e a n t t h e y w e r e b o u r g e o i s e s act-
i n g a g a i n s t t h e i r class i n t e r e s t s o r p r o s t i t u t e s a c t i n g i n t h e i r s , is u n c l e a r .
O t h e r a c c o u n t s a r e n o t so a m b i g u o u s . M a n y a s c r i b e d t h e fires t o p r o s t i -
t u t e s . T h e New York Herald w r o t e f l o r i d l y o n t h e t w e n t y - e i g h t h a b o u t t h e
"loose w o m e n of Paris, t h o s e d e b a s e d a n d d e b a u c h e d c r e a t u r e s , t h e very
o u t c a s t s o f society, . . . k n o w i n g n o s h a m e , d e a d t o all f e e l i n g , w i t h o u t
h o m e s , w i t h o u t f r i e n d s , n o little o n e s t o c l a i m t h e i r a t t e n t i o n , " w h o h a d
set t h e fires.111 T h e g o v e r n m e n t r e i t e r a t e d t h i s t h e o r y later, w h e n it t r i e d
the f e m a l e p r i s o n e r s , a n d in t h e official N a t i o n a l Assembly r e p o r t o n t h e
C o m m u n e , General Appert declared that the 850 w o m e n who were taken
to V e r s a i l l e s w e r e " a l m o s t all n o m a d s , g i v e n u p t o d i s o r d e r a n d p r o s t i t u -
t i o n . " W e l l o v e r h a l f o f t h e m w e r e m a r r i e d , h e w a s f o r c e d t o a d m i t . Nev-
e r t h e l e s s , e v e n t h e y " d i d n o t g i v e t h e a p p e a r a n c e o f h a v i n g a r e g u l a r life
a n d , l i k e t h e o t h e r s , h a d f o r t h e m o s t p a r t l o n g s i n c e f o r g o t t e n all t h e s e n -
timents of family a n d morality."112
T h e New York Tribune c o r r e s p o n d e n t d i d n o t a g r e e . H e n o t e d t h e v a r i e t y
of f e m a l e p r i s o n e r s : S o m e " w e r e d r e s s e d as v i v a n d i e r e s One had a
c h i l d s t r u n g o n h e r b a c k . T h e a r m o f a n o t h e r w a s in a sling. T h e h a b i t - s k i r t
o n a n o t h e r pretty b r u n e t t e was c o v e r e d with f r e s h b l o o d . A n o t h e r A m a -
112Unruly Women of Paris
z o n w a s w o u n d e d . " W h e r e a s " t h e y all s h o w e d s y m p t o m s o f f a t i g u e , " h e d e -

c l a r e d , t h e y "still w o r e a d e f i a n t air, a n d d i d n o t s e e m t o b e l o n g t o t h e class
w i t h w h i c h t h e M a g d a l e n a s y l u m s a r e p e o p l e d . " 1 1 3 Le Gaulois h a d a n e n -
tire catalog of guilty f e m a l e types w h i c h i n c l u d e d p r o s t i t u t e s b u t was n o t
l i m i t e d to t h e m "the a m a z o n s of t h e C o m m u n e , t h e i n c e n d i a r i e s of t h e
m o n u m e n t s a n d of Paris, t h e p o i s o n e r s of t h e F r e n c h soldiers, t h e p i m p s
a n d p r o s t i t u t e s o f t h e S a t r a p s o f t h e H o t e l d e Ville, t h e p r o m u l g a t r i c e s o f
the c o d e of f r e e u n i o n in f r e e d e b a u c h e r y , t h e f e m a l e d e t h r o n e r s of G o d
. . . a n d priestesses of M a r a t , . . . the h e i n o u s shrews w h o i n v e n t e d t h e mot-
t o ' M u r d e r a n d k e r o s e n e [petrole] ,'"114
O t h e r s c a t a l o g e d c r i m e s a c c o r d i n g t o s e x a n d a g e . T h e Times s u g g e s t e d
t h a t it w a s a c a s e o f " w o m e n f o r g e t t i n g t h e i r s e x a n d t h e i r g e n t l e n e s s t o
c o m m i t a s s a s s i n a t i o n , t o p o i s o n s o l d i e r s , t o b u r n a n d t o slay; little c h i l d r e n
c o n v e r t e d into d e m o n s of d e s t r u c t i o n , a n d d r o p p i n g p e t r o l e u m into t h e
a r e a s o f h o u s e s ; s o l d i e r s i n t u r n f o r g e t t i n g all d i s t i n c t i o n s o f s e x a n d a g e ,
a n d s h o o t i n g d o w n p r i s o n e r s like v e r m i n , n o w by scores a n d n o w by h u n -
d r e d s . " 1 1 5 T h e c a t a l o g i n t h e Standard w a s p i t h i e r , b u t it, t o o , b e l i e v e d
w o m e n h a d f o r g o t t e n t h e i r sex. " M e n h a v e f o r g o t t e n t h e i r chivalry, w o m e n
t h e i r s e x , c h i l d r e n t h e i r i n n o c e n c e , " it w r o t e o n t h e t h i r t i e t h . 1 1 6 T h e a n t i -
Commune New York Herald d e c l a r e d in t h e s a m e vein, " K n o w i n g no
shame," the w o m e n h a d "unsexed themselves."117
E x a c t l y w h a t w o m e n b e c a m e w h e n t h e y f o r g o t t h e i r s e x a n d a c t e d vio-
l e n t l y w a s n o t e n t i r e l y a g r e e d . S o m e saw t h e m as i n h u m a n ( e . g . , c r e a t u r e s ) ;
s o m e as i m m o r a l (e.g., f u r i e s , h a r p i e s , a n d w i t c h e s ) ; s o m e as d e b a s e d a n d
d e b a u c h e d (e.g., p r o s t i t u t e s ) ; a n d s o m e as m a d w o m e n . It is d i f f i c u l t t o
k n o w e x a c t l y w h a t t h e Standard, t h e Times, a n d o t h e r c r i t i c s m e a n t b y t h e
p h r a s e , b u t t h e Times, b y l i n k i n g t h e i r s e x w i t h g e n t l e n e s s , a n d t h e New York
Herald, b y r e f e r r i n g t o "lack o f s h a m e , " give u s s o m e c l u e . F o r m a n y , t h e
g e n t l e n e s s a n d purity these w o m e n s e e m e d to have f o r g o t t e n o r lost w e r e
essential p a r t s of t h e i r n a t u r e , s y n o n y m o u s with femininity.
N o c o m p a r a b l e loss o f e s s e n c e w a s i m p l i e d b y m e n ' s a c t i o n s . T h e y m i g h t
have c o m m i t t e d crimes. T h e y m i g h t have f o r g o t t e n to be chivalrous, m i g h t
have s h o t p r i s o n e r s like v e r m i n . B u t they h a d n o t c e a s e d t o b e m a s c u l i n e ,
h a d n o t f o r g o t t e n their sex o r violated t h e i r essential n a t u r e (although
t h e y m i g h t h a v e f o r g o t t e n t h e i r h u m a n i t y ) . A l t h o u g h it is p e r h a p s a n o v e r -
s i m p l i f i c a t i o n , it is r e l a t i v e l y a c c u r a t e t o say t h a t f o r m a n y n i n e t e e n t h - c e n -
t u r y o b s e r v e r s , w o m e n ' s c r i m e s w e r e c r i m e s against f e m i n i n i t y , n o t of f e m -
ininity, w h e r e a s m e n ' s c r i m e s w e r e c r i m e s o/masculinity.
B o u r g e o i s c u l t u r e c o n c e i v e d o f w o m a n ' s n a t u r e as b i f u r c a t e d o r d u a l .
M a n ' s n a t u r e w a s m o r e u n i f i e d . T h i s d i f f e r e n c e m a d e it p o s s i b l e f o r
w o m e n to s e e m m o r e duplicitous t h a n m e n . A virtuous w o m a n c o u l d be-
Les Petroleuses 194
c o m e w i c k e d . E x a c t l y h o w t h i s h a p p e n e d w a s n o t c l e a r , b u t if a w o m a n
s h o o k o f f t h e r e s t r a i n t s o f c i v i l i z a t i o n , t h e c h u r c h , a n d t h e family, s h e c o u l d
go f r o m b e i n g Mary to b e i n g Mary M a g d a l e n e , f r o m b e i n g p u r e a n d m o r a l
to b e i n g i m p u r e a n d i m m o r a l , f r o m virginity to p r o s t i t u t i o n , f r o m femi-
n i n e r e t i c e n c e to promiscuity. O n l y o n e - h a l f of t h e s e d i c h o t o m i e s was tru-
ly f e m i n i n e . T h e o t h e r h a l f w a s still f e m a l e (i.e., n o t m a l e ) b u t a l s o s o m e -
h o w a n t i f e m i n i n e . If w o m a n ' s n a t u r e w a s f u n d a m e n t a l l y f i s s u r e d , if t h e
moral m o t h e r could b e c o m e the seductive fury, t h e n the c o m m u n a r d e s
h a d n o t s o m u c h v i o l a t e d t h e i r sex as t h e y h a d b e c o m e a n o t h e r p a r t o f it,
n o t willfully b u t inevitably. T h e y h a d m o v e d f r o m t h e g o o d t o t h e b a d s i d e
of t h e i r n a t u r e . N o l o n g e r v i r t u o u s a n d m a t e r n a l , n o l o n g e r staying in t h e i r
h o m e s t o c a r e f o r t h e i r c h i l d r e n , t h e y h a d b e c o m e t h e i n c a r n a t i o n o f evil,
t e m p t i n g m e n , c o r r u p t i n g their children, a n d b u r n i n g the h o m e s in which
they "naturally" b e l o n g e d . I n d e e d , o n e of the "crimes" ascribed to the
p e t r o l e u s e was t h a t she h a d c o r r u p t e d h e r c h i l d r e n a n d t u r n e d t h e m into
little i n c e n d i a r i e s . S u c h w o m e n h a d l o s t o r f o r g o t t e n o r v i o l a t e d t h e i r f e m -
ininity.
S o m e analysts w o r k e d with o t h e r d i c h o t o m i e s h a v i n g to d o with partic-

ular aspects of n i n e t e e n t h - c e n t u r y n o t i o n s of g e n d e r . For t h e m , w o m e n ' s
weakness (versus m e n ' s s t r e n g t h ) was t h e e x p l a n a t i o n f o r t h e p e t r o l e u s e s
a n d o t h e r wicked w o m e n of the C o m m u n e . Sarcey's physician o f f e r e d a
v e r s i o n o f t h i s t h e o r y i n h i s view o f w o m e n ' s w e a k e r b r a i n s a n d l i v e l i e r s e n -
sibilities. J u l e s B e r g e r e t , a n e l e c t e d m e m b e r o f t h e c o m m u n e , v o i c e d a n -
o t h e r . " T h e w o m a n is d e s t i n e d , b y h e r p h y s i c a l a n d m o r a l n a t u r e , t o re-
m a i n w i t h i n t h e n a r r o w c i r c l e o f t h e d o m e s t i c h e a r t h , " h e w r o t e . B u t if t h e
s a n c t i t y o f t h e h o m e w e r e v i o l a t e d , as B e r g e r e t b e l i e v e d it h a d b e e n b y t h e
Versailles invasion of Paris, " t h e n , a n d only t h e n , d o w o m e n rise u p e n -
r a g e d . " "You m a y call t h e m f u r i e s , " h e d e c l a r e d , " b u t it is s o c i e t y t h a t h a s
d r i v e n t h e s e passive c r e a t u r e s i n t o m a d n e s s . " 1 1 8
T h e i n e v i t a b l e c o n c l u s i o n o f s u c h t h e o r i e s , as b o t h B e r g e r e t a n d S a r c e y
c o u l d see, was a radical a l t e r a t i o n in t h e q u e s t i o n of guilt a n d i n n o c e n c e .
F o r B e r g e r e t , t h i s w a s p a r t o f t h e t h e o r y ' s a p p e a l . If s o c i e t y h a d d r i v e n t h e
w o m e n t o fight, t h e n " h e w h o w o u l d s t r i k e t h e m w i t h o u t p i t y w a s h i m s e l f
c o n d e m n e d . " 1 1 9 F o r Sarcey, o n t h e o t h e r h a n d , t h e i d e a t h a t w o m e n w e r e
n o t r e s p o n s i b l e f o r their actions a n d s h o u l d n o t b e p u n i s h e d was un-
t h i n k a b l e a n d h e b a c k e d away f o r m it i m m e d i a t e l y . H a v i n g a l r e a d y sug-
gested that there were "horrible shrews" a m o n g the d e m e n t e d w o m e n ,
"who k n o w w h a t they are d o i n g a n d act cold-bloodedly," h e d e m a n d e d that
they, a t l e a s t , b e p u n i s h e d . " T h o s e w h o h a v e s c h e m i n g l y c o n t r i b u t e d t o
s p r e a d t h i s m a d n e s s , w h o h a v e e x c i t e d a n d c a r r i e d it t o t h i s s t a t e , " h e
w r o t e , "let u s h o p e t h a t a t l e a s t t h e y will n o t e s c a p e t h e s e v e r e p u n i s h m e n t
1 12
that they merit."120 H o w t h e wicked were to b e distinguished f r o m the

m e r e l y m a d w a s u n c l e a r . W h a t w a s c l e a r w a s t h a t it w a s o n e t h i n g t o d r a w
a distinction b e t w e e n the n a t u r e of m a n a n d the n a t u r e of w o m a n which
w o u l d d e f i n e t h e p e t r o l e u s e s as evil a n d a n o t h e r t o d r a w a d i s t i n c t i o n t h a t
w o u l d absolve w o m e n of responsibility f o r t h e i r actions.
Punishment
T h e Versailles soldiers w r e a k e d g r e a t v e n g e a n c e against t h e N a t i o n a l

G u a r d a n d t h e C o m m u n e l e a d e r s w h e n t h e y i n v a d e d t h e city, k i l l i n g m e n
by t h e h u n d r e d s a n d t h o u s a n d s . E v e n r e p u b l i c a n s w h o h a d n o t s u p p o r t e d
t h e C o m m u n e w e r e e x e c u t e d . 1 2 1 I n a d d i t i o n t o s i m p l e e x e c u t i o n , t h e sol-
d i e r s u s e d various f o r m s of h u m i l i a t i o n a g a i n s t t h e i r victims. T h i s was t r u e
for b o t h m e n a n d w o m e n , b u t the p u n i s h m e n t m e t e d o u t to w o m e n o f t e n
h a d a sexual d i m e n s i o n t h a t was a b s e n t in t h e t r e a t m e n t of t h e m e n .
Several m e n r e p o r t e d that w o m e n ' s c l o t h i n g was t o r n o r s t r i p p e d off be-
f o r e they were e x e c u t e d . Recall Child's r e p o r t that s o m e of the p r i s o n e r s
w h o w e r e m a r c h e d t h r o u g h t h e streets h a d their "chests e x p o s e d to show
t h e i r s e x . " 1 2 2 O n M a y 2 6 t h e Times c o r r e s p o n d e n t r e p o r t e d t h a t t h i r t e e n
w o m e n , " c a u g h t i n t h e a c t o f s p r e a d i n g p e t r o l e u m " h a d b e e n e x e c u t e d "af-
ter b e i n g publicly d i s g r a c e d in t h e Place V e n d ö m e . " 1 2 3 T h e r i p p i n g of t h e
w o m e n ' s b o d i c e s to reveal their breasts m a y have b e e n t h e least of this h u -
miliation, j u d g i n g f r o m o t h e r reports. Bergeret, citing t h e j o u r n a l s ofVer-
sailles as h i s s o u r c e , r e p o r t e d t h a t t h e w o m e n w h o w e r e a r r e s t e d i n t h e first,
eighth, and ninth arrondissements were taken to the place Vendome,
"stripped, raped, a n d massacred."124
S o m e t i m e s t h e h u m i l i a t i o n f o l l o w e d e x e c u t i o n ( m o r e o r less). G e o r g e s
J e n n e r e t , q u o t e d f r o m t h e Droits de l'Homme o f M o n t p e l l i e r , "As f o r t h e
w o m e n w h o w e r e shot, t h e y t r e a t e d t h e m a l m o s t like t h e p o o r A r a b s of a n
i n s u r g e n t tribe: after they h a d killed t h e m , they stripped t h e m , while they
w e r e still i n t h e i r d e a t h t h r o e s , o f p a r t o f t h e i r c l o t h i n g . S o m e t i m e s t h e y
w e n t e v e n f u r t h e r , as a t t h e f o o t o f t h e f a u b o u r g M o n t m a r t r e a n d i n t h e
place V e n d o m e , w h e r e s o m e w o m e n were left n a k e d a n d defiled o n the
sidewalks."125 Lissagaray r e p o r t e d a similar s c e n e in t h e e l e v e n t h ar-
r o n d i s s e m e n t . Risking a r r e s t f o r his s u p p o r t of t h e C o m m u n e , h e w a l k e d
c a u t i o u s l y t o w a r d t h e mairie o n t h e t w e n t y - e i g h t h . T h e r e , h e saw a d e a d
w o m a n a n d "a m a r i n e f u s i l i e r [ w h o ] w a s d i v i d i n g t h e e n t r a i l s t h a t p r o -
t r u d e d f r o m h e r with his b a y o n e t . " 1 2 6
Symbolic u n d r e s s i n g also o c c u r r e d . G o n c o u r t r e p o r t e d t h a t s o m e of t h e
w o m e n h e saw b e i n g m a r c h e d t h r o u g h t h e city w e r e c o n c e a l e d b e h i n d
Les Petroleuses 181
veils u n t i l a " n o n c o m m i s s i o n e d o f f i c e r t o u c h e d o n e o f t h e veils w i t h a c r u -

el a n d b r u t a l f l i c k o f h i s w h i p " a n d d e m a n d e d , ' " C o m e o n , o f f w i t h y o u r
veils. L e t ' s s e e y o u r slutty f a c e s ! ' " 1 2 7 U n v e i l i n g a w o m a n ' s f a c e , l i k e t e a r i n g
h e r c l o t h i n g , a c c o m p l i s h e d s e v e r a l o b j e c t i v e s . O n t h e s i m p l e s t level, it r e -
v e a l e d h e r sex. Since s o m e of t h e w o m e n w e r e d r e s s e d in N a t i o n a l G u a r d
uniforms, tearing their bodices to show their breasts c o n f i r m e d that they
w e r e w o m e n . B u t m o r e t h a n s i m p l e i d e n t i f i c a t i o n w a s g o i n g o n h e r e . Sol-
diers u n d r e s s e d a n d unveiled w o m e n to humiliate t h e m .
F o r m e n , simply b e i n g c a p t u r e d a n d t h u s r e n d e r e d powerless was h u -
m i l i a t i n g , as t h e i r r e p o r t e d l y p a s s i v e b e h a v i o r i n t h e c o n v o y s d e m o n s t r a t -
e d t o t h e c r o w d s a l o n g t h e way. S i n c e w o m e n w e r e s u p p o s e d t o b e p o w e r -
less anyway, c a p t u r e a l o n e w o u l d n o t h u m i l i a t e t h e m , as t h e i r r e p o r t e d
d e f i a n c e a n d c o q u e t r y " i n d i c a t e d . " M e r e l y i m p r i s o n i n g t h e m w a s n o t suf-
ficient p u n i s h m e n t ; m o r e was n e e d e d . S t r i p p i n g a w o m a n ( n o t to m e n t i o n
r a p i n g h e r a n d t h u s violently r e m i n d i n g h e r of w o m a n ' s powerlessness)
w a s i n t e n d e d t o a c c o m p l i s h t h e d e s i r e d h u m i l i a t i o n . It w o u l d r e v e a l t o t h e
world, o r at least to t h e s p e c t a t o r s a n d f i r i n g s q u a d s , t h a t s h e was o n l y a
w e a k w o m a n a f t e r all, n o t a f u r y w i t h t h e p o w e r t o b u r n h o u s e s a n d kill
men.
I n a d d i t i o n to c a p t u r e , m e n w e r e s u b j e c t e d to o t h e r f o r m s of h u m i l i a -
tion. S o m e w e r e s h o t in t h e back; o t h e r s w e r e f o r c e d to k n e e l b e f o r e t h e i r
e x e c u t i o n e r s . P r i s o n e r s in convoys h a d to r e m o v e t h e i r kepis a n d t u r n
t h e i r u n i f o r m j a c k e t s (if t h e y w o r e o n e ) i n s i d e o u t . G o n c o u r t f o u n d t h a t
t h e t u r n i n g of m e n ' s j a c k e t s m a d e t h e m s e e m "half u n d r e s s e d , " even
t h o u g h they r e m a i n e d fully c l o t h e d . 1 2 8 H e r e , t h e ritual d e g r a d i n g of m e n
s t o p p e d , p r e s u m a b l y b e c a u s e even m i l d f o r m s of h u m i l i a t i o n (compared
with r a p e ) p u t m e n in t h e passive p o s i t i o n of w o m e n a n d t h e r e b y emas-
culated them, and because the punishers were themselves m e n .
For w o m e n , u n d r e s s i n g went further. But n o m a t t e r what m e n did to the
women, the petroleuse r e m a i n e d a frightening but compelling figure, a
f u r y w i t h u n b o u n d , f l y i n g h a i r ; a d e f i a n t m a d w o m a n , c a p t u r e d b u t wild;
s o m e t i m e s u g l y a n d s o m e t i m e s b e a u t i f u l , o f t e n s e d u c t i v e , a n d always m o r e
powerful and m o r e fascinating than her cowed male counterpart, who,
o n c e a r r e s t e d , b e c a m e serious a n d u n n a t u r a l l y passive, while s h e c o n t i n -
u e d to a p p e a r u n n a t u r a l l y aggressive. T o m a k e m a t t e r s worse, t h e sexual
h u m i l i a t i o n , r a p e , a n d k i l l i n g o f w o m e n h a d s o m e p o t e n t i a l t o p r o d u c e re-
p u l s i o n n o t a g a i n s t t h e w o m e n b u t a g a i n s t t h e s o l d i e r s . A f t e r all, i n t h e
p r o p e r b o u r g e o i s o r d e r of things, w o m e n w o u l d b e p r o t e c t e d by m e n . T o
d e g r a d e a n d kill t h e m , e v e n if t h e y h a d g o t t e n o u t o f t h e i r p r o p e r p l a c e ,
was p r o b l e m a t i c . A s t h e Standard p o i n t e d o u t , it c o u l d h a p p e n o n l y if m e n
f o r g o t t h e i r chivalry.
1 12
T h e Bourgeoises
J u s t as m e n r e p e a t e d l y " d e s c r i b e d " t h e f e m a l e p r i s o n e r s , t h e y a l s o c o m -
m e n t e d over a n d over o n the bourgeoises w h o taunted a n d tortured the
p r i s o n e r s as t h e y m a r c h e d t h r o u g h t h e s t r e e t s . T h e Times r e p o r t e d o n M a y
27 that the j e e r i n g m o b following t h e prisoners c o n t a i n e d " m o r e w o m e n
t h a n m e n a m o n g its r a n k s — w o m e n w h o h o o t a n d c l a p t h e i r h a n d s a n d in-
sult t h e i r victims to t h e i r h e a r t s ' c o n t e n t " ; a n d r e i t e r a t e d Voltaire's misogy-
29
nist d e c l a r a t i o n t h a t a Parisian w o m a n was "half tiger a n d half m o n k e y ! ' "
F o r b e s r e p o r t e d t h e l y n c h i n g o f a c o m m u n a r d b y a m o b a n d V e r s a i l l e s sol-
d i e r s o n M a y 2 4 i n s i m i l a r l y m i s o g y n i s t l a n g u a g e : "Very e a g e r i n t h e i r p a -
triotic duty w e r e t h e d e a r c r e a t u r e s of w o m e n . T h e y k n e w t h e rat-holes into
w h i c h t h e p o o r d e v i l s h a d s q u e e z e d t h e m s e l v e s , a n d t h e y g u i d e d t h e Ver-
saillist s o l d i e r s t o t h e s p o t w i t h a f i e n d i s h g l e e T h e y yell, . . - ' S h o o t
h i m ! S h o o t h i m ! ' — t h e d e m o n - w o m e n m o s t c l a m o r o u s of c o u r s e . " 1 3 0
C e r f b e e r l o n g r e m e m b e r e d t h e c o l u m n s of p r i s o n e r s a n d h o w t h e spec-
t a t o r s h a d t r e a t e d t h e m . A s t h e p r i s o n e r s m a d e t h e i r w e a r y way t h r o u g h
t h e city, h e r e c a l l e d i n 1 9 0 3 , " o n e h e a r d n o c r y o f pity; h o r r i b l e e p i t h e t s ,
i n s u l t s , injuries, r a i n e d d o w n u p o n t h e m a l o n g w i t h p i e c e s o f c h a r r e d w o o d
a n d s t o n e s . . . . A b o v e all, t h e w o m e n w e r e w i t h o u t pity, s c r e a m i n g 'Kill
t h e m ! T o d e a t h ! ' " 1 3 1 Even M a x i m e D u C a m p , o n e of t h e Commune's
s e v e r e s t critics, w a s d i s t r e s s e d b y t h e w o m e n ' s b e h a v i o r : " W h e n a b a n d o f
prisoners appeared, people rushed toward t h e m a n d tried to break
t h r o u g h the c o r d o n of soldiers w h o e s c o r t e d t h e m a n d p r o t e c t e d t h e m ;
t h e w o m e n w e r e , as always, t h e m o s t a g i t a t e d ; t h e y b r o k e t h r o u g h t h e mil-
i t a r y r a n k s a n d b e a t t h e p r i s o n e r s w i t h u m b r e l l a s , c r y i n g : Kill t h e assassins!
Burn the incendiaries!"132
W h e t h e r the w o m e n in fact b e h a v e d substantially differently f r o m the
m e n is u n c l e a r . W h a t is c l e a r is t h a t m a n y m a l e a n d s o m e f e m a l e o b s e r v e r s
p e r c e i v e d a n d j u d g e d t h a t b e h a v i o r d i f f e r e n t l y . 1 3 3 T h e p e r c e p t i o n was
b o r n o f b o u r g e o i s n o t i o n s o f class a n d g e n d e r w h i c h m a d e t h e b e h a v i o r o f
t h e b o u r g e o i s e s as a p p a l l i n g a n d e v e n m o r e s u r p r i s i n g t h a n t h a t o f t h e
working-class c o m m u n a r d e s . Unlike t h e c o m m u n a r d e s , the bourgeoises
c o u l d n o t b e d i s m i s s e d as l o o s e w o m e n , living i n d i s o r d e r a n d p r o s t i t u t i o n ,
o r as s u f f e r i n g f r o m folie contagieuse. I n d e e d , it w a s p r e c i s e l y b e c a u s e t h e y
w e r e p e r c e i v e d as h a v i n g m i d d l e - c l a s s h o m e s , h u s b a n d s , a n d c h i l d r e n , a n d
h e n c e as h a v i n g b e e n r e l a t i v e l y p r o t e c t e d d u r i n g t h e o r d e a l s o f t h e t w o
s i e g e s , t h a t t h e i r v e n g e f u l p u b l i c b e h a v i o r w a s so t r o u b l i n g .
Perhaps even m o r e than the c o m m u n a r d e s , the bourgeoises c o n f i r m e d
m e n ' s f e a r s a b o u t t h e n a t u r e o f w o m e n . If b o u r g e o i s w o m e n c o u l d l o s e
c o n t r o l , " f o r g e t t h e i r s e x , " a n d b e c o m e f u r i e s , t h e n all w o m e n w e r e p o -
Les Petroleuses 183
t e n t i a l v i r a g o e s , a n d n o w o m a n c o u l d b e c o m p l e t e l y t r u s t e d t o r e m a i n loy-
al, s u b m i s s i v e , a n d n u r t u r i n g . T o m a k e m a t t e r s e v e n m o r e c o m p l i c a t e d ,
t h e b o u r g e o i s e s also violated t h e c o d e of middle-class b e h a v i o r t o w a r d de-
f e a t e d e n e m i e s . T h e New York Tribune r e p o r t e d o n Wednesday, May 31
" T h e w o m e n o f V e r s a i l l e s d i s p l a y a cowardly violence a g a i nst t h e h e l p l e s s p r i s -
o n e r s . " 1 3 4 T h e j o u r n a l i s t s e x p e c t e d b o u r g e o i s w o m e n , like t h e i r m e n , to
b e b r a v e u n d e r d u r e s s a n d g r a c i o u s i n victory, n o t c o w a r d l y a n d v e n g e f u l .
C o m i n g o n t o p of t h e u n e x p e c t e d a n d f r i g h t e n i n g b e h a v i o r of t h e c o m -
m u n a r d e s a n d v i o l a t i n g g e n d e r a n d class c o d e s a t t h e s a m e t i m e , t h e b e -
h a v i o r o f t h e b o u r g e o i s e s s e e m e d t o p r o v i d e p r o o f b o t h t h a t F r e n c h soci-
ety w a s i n a s t a t e o f c o l l a p s e a n d t h a t e v e r y w o m a n w a s a p o t e n t i a l f u r y .
T h e b o u r g e o i s e s c o u l d n o t b e p u n i s h e d b y a r r e s t a n d i m p r i s o n m e n t as
t h e c o m m u n a r d e s c o u l d . T h e y h a d b r o k e n o n l y t h e laws o f p r o p r i e t y , n o t
t h e laws o f t h e s t a t e . B u t t h e i r u n l a d y l i k e b e h a v i o r c o u l d b e t h o r o u g h l y
c o n d e m n e d i n t h e p r e s s , a n d it w o u l d n o t s o o n b e f o r g o t t e n b y b o u r g e o i s
men.
T h e Petroleuse a n d the Artist
A r t i s t s a n d c a r i c a t u r i s t s p r o d u c e d visual r e p r e s e n t a t i o n s o f t h e p e t r o -
leuses, s o m e t i m e s to a c c o m p a n y t h e d e s c r i p t i o n s of j o u r n a l i s t s a n d s o m e -
times to stand alone. T h e s e images, p e r h a p s m o r e t h a n t h e written de-
scriptions, gave staying p o w e r to t h e m y t h . I n t h e artists' h a n d s , however,
t h e variety of p e t r o l e u s e s d e s c r i b e d by r e p o r t e r s a n d o t h e r eyewitnesses—
t h e i m p l a c a b l e fury, h e r hair d i s h e v e l e d a n d u n r e s t r a i n e d , h e r eyes wild
with insanity; t h e m a d w o m a n , h e r f a c e d i s t o r t e d by rage; t h e s t u n n i n g
beauty; t h e c o q u e t t i s h a n d seductive y o u n g w o m a n — w a s lost. R e p l a c i n g
t h e m w e r e two m a j o r i m a g e s — t h e h a g a n d t h e victim.
I n u n s y m p a t h e t i c r e p r e s e n t a t i o n s , artists e m p h a s i z e d t h e h i d e o u s , strip-
p i n g t h e w o m e n of t h e c o m p e l l i n g f u r y a n d sexuality of t h e w r i t t e n de-
scriptions. T h e y b e c a m e b a n s h e e s racing a r o u n d Paris with their cans of
p e t r o l (fig. 1 7 ) ; h a g s p o u r i n g p e t r o l t h r o u g h w i n d o w s , s o m e t i m e s a s s i s t e d
by t h e i r c o r r u p t e d c h i l d r e n (fig. 1 8 ) ; o r i n o n e o f t h e m o s t v i c i o u s a n t i -
c o m m u n a r d e c a r t o o n s o f t h e p e r i o d , a p i g (fig. 19), a r e v e r s a l o f t h e m y t h
o f C i r c e , w h o s e d u c e d t h e c o m p a n i o n s o f Ulysses w i t h h e r b e a u t i f u l v o i c e
a n d hair a n d t u r n e d t h e m into swine.
T h e h o r r o r a n d r a g e c o n s e r v a t i v e s f e l t t o w a r d t h e p e t r o l e u s e s is o b v i o u s
in t h e c a r i c a t u r e s , as is t h e i r s e n s e t h a t t h e s e w e r e u n n a t u r a l w o m e n . N a t -
u r a l w o m e n d o n o t h a v e p i g s ' s n o u t s , c r o u c h a r o u n d c e l l a r w i n d o w s like
M a c b e t h ' s witches a r o u n d a c a u l d r o n (see frontispiece), o r race t h r o u g h
\ n
FIGURE 17. Eugene Girard, The Emancipated Woman Shedding Light on the World
Les Petroleuses 185
FIGURE 18. [Nevel] Untitled—petroleuse and child. Bibliotheque Nationale.

1 12
PARIS SOUS LA COMMUNE
UNE P^TROLEUSE
FIGURE19. Dubois, "A Petroleuse. Ah! If her man could see her." Paris sous
Commune. Bibliotheque Nationale.
Les Petroleuses 187
the streets with b u r n i n g faggots and cans of petrol. By emphasizing the

hideous in their drawings of the petroleuse, the anti-Commune cartoon-
ists went o n e step farther than the verbal descriptions in their hatred of
women. But they also missed o n e of the things that m a d e the journalists'
petroleuse so horrifying, and hence so h a t e d — h e r sexuality.
For the conservative artist, the petroleuse was to be the e m b o d i m e n t of
evil, n o t a sexually attractive woman who could c o m m a n d the attention of
m e n or a victim for whom the viewer might feel sympathy. To draw
Goncourt's beautiful young fury with wild curly hair, steely eyes, and red-
d e n e d cheeks would have been counterproductive. Attraction or sympathy
on the part of the viewer would interfere with the message of the carica-
turists. Baring the breasts of the petroleuses, as the written accounts indi-
cate occurred, was also impossible. It might have confused the message by
reminding viewers of the powerful and virtuous bare-breasted goddesses
of contemporary and classical art and caricature, or by turning the
petroleuses into victims. 1 3 5
Frederic Lix, in his representation of the petroleuses for Le Monde Illus-
tre (see the frontispiece) emphasized the evil of the female incendiaries by
foregrounding t h e m and juxtaposing them to ideal bourgeois women—a
well-dressed, n u r t u r i n g m o t h e r with a child in her arms and a well-coiffed,
well-dressed young woman. They, along with a defenseless old man, are
fleeing (or in the case of the woman at the u p p e r window, trying to flee) a
b u r n i n g building. Lix's subjects illustrate what he saw as the h o r r o r of the
petroleuses and the C o m m u n e . Evil had triumphed. Working-class
women, who had "forgotten their sex," had taken control and were de-
stroying the city. Men, in the f o r m of two national guardsmen, who should
have been in charge at least of the women of their class, had t u r n e d their
backs and stood passively by. Defenseless (and good) bourgeois women,
children, and old people were n o longer safe in their homes. T h e world
had been t u r n e d upside down in m o r e ways than one.
In sympathetic representations, artists stripped the petroleuses of both
their sexuality and their fearsomeness and h e n c e of their power. Their
petroleuses were young, attractive women (fig. 20), captured and afraid,
who shrank back in fear against the walls where they were about to be ex-
ecuted. Powerless and helpless, these petroleuses were not the furies of the
bourgeois imagination but innocent victims of the Versailles soldiers. They
could not be sexually seductive or coquettish or strong, or they might ap-
pear to be in some way responsible for their fate. Nowhere to be seen in
these drawings is the woman whose beauty and defiance attracted
Goncourt: "Among these women there is o n e who is especially beautiful,
beautiful with the implacable fury of a young Fate. She is a brunette with
FIGURE 20. "The End of the Commune: Execution of a Petroleuse," The Graphic,
June 10, 1871. Bibliotheque Nationale.
Les Petroleuses 204
wild curly hair, with eyes of steel, with cheeks r e d d e n e d by dried tears. She
is planted in an attitude of defiance." 1 3 6
Although the artists eliminated sexuality f r o m their drawings, the
petroleuse had to be immediately recognizable as female. For sympathet-
ic artists, h e r femininity (as distinct f r o m her sexuality) was integral to her
victimhood. For unsympathetic artists, femaleness rather than femininity
was the issue. If the figure could be misconstrued as male, the power of the
message would be lost. Some caricaturists did draw an occasional petroleur,
but this figure soon disappeared from the histories and memoirs of the
C o m m u n e . For men, the h o r r o r of the fires could be represented ade-
quately only in the figure of the u n n a t u r a l woman, the female incendiary.
As a result, the drawings always depicted the petroleuse in a dress, even
though the written accounts indicate that communardes often wore m e n ' s
clothing. 1 3 7
In the petroleuse, the C o m m u n e acquired its own particular and pow-

erful representation of the unruly woman. Beside her, the amazons, furies,
viragoes, harpies, and vivandieres of history (and of the earlier days of the
C o m m u n e ) paled into insignificance. H e r image would illustrate memoirs,
histories, and textbooks for m o r e than a century. What m a d e her so fright-
ening was the perversion of nineteenth-century femininity that she em-
bodied. Unlike unruly women from the Amazons of ancient Greece to
J e a n n e d'Arc, she did not fight m e n o n their own terrain, where they might
be expected to win, inasmuch as even the strongest, fiercest woman was af-
ter all still a woman, and would, they believed, flinch from death. Instead,
she t u r n e d the c u n n i n g and deviousness that was thought to be charming
in the most feminine w o m e n 1 3 8 to evil purpose; she crept through the
night to b u r n and destroy.
How could m e n fight this unruly woman who perverted femininity? How
could m e n know which women were likely to succumb to this evil? How,
indeed, were m e n to avoid the seductive power of such women? T h e an-
swer, they hoped, lay in the p u n i s h m e n t of any woman—petroleuse or poi-
soner—who had perverted h e r femininity. And so, women who were
thought to be petroleuses were executed by the soldiers, taunted by the
good bourgeoises of Paris and Versailles, and b r o u g h t to trial for their
"crimes." And in good symbolic fashion, a woman who was accused of poi-
soning forty soldiers was "taken to her h o m e to be shot at the door of her
house as an example." 1 3 9 William Gibson, who made this statement, saw
no n e e d to elaborate on what kind of an example the soldiers had in mind
(assuming, n o doubt, that no elaboration was necessary), but there can be
little d o u b t about the meaning he read into this act. A woman's place was
1 12
in h e r home. If she left it to behave unnaturally, she was n o longer truly a

"woman," n o longer deserving of a "man's," protection, and she would be
killed. Shooting a woman on h e r doorstep symbolically reinforced the mes-
sage. Indeed, the entire semaine sanglante might be seen as a warning to
the m e n and women of Paris of the kind of retribution they could expect
if they rebelled again. O t h e r warnings would sound from the courts in Ver-
sailles.
C H A P T E R S I X
Women on Trial
W hile t h e killings c o n t i n u e d in Paris a n d o n t h e r o a d s to Versailles

prisoners s t r e a m e d into Louis XIV's city, s o m e t i m e s f o r i m m e -
diate e x e c u t i o n b u t mostly f o r i m p r i s o n m e n t , i n t e r r o g a t i o n a n d
trial. For m a n y writers, this p a r t of t h e C o m m u n e ' s history has s e e m e d a n
u n n e c e s s a r y a p p e n d a g e or epilog to t h e rise-and-fall narrative of its sev-
enty-three days, a n d they have paid it little o r n o a t t e n t i o n . 1 For t h e gov-
e r n m e n t a n d t h e surviving C o m m u n a r d s , however, t h e Versailles trials
were an integral p a r t of t h e conflict t h a t h a d b e g u n o n M a r c h 18. T h e gov-
e r n m e n t , e m b o d i e d in military p r o s e c u t o r s a n d j u d g e s , set f o r t h its case
against t h e C o m m u n a r d s a n d t h e i r g o v e r n m e n t . T h e trials h a d t h r e e goals-
to p u n i s h t h e C o m m u n a r d s , to discredit t h e C o m m u n e a n d its principles
a n d to d e m o n s t r a t e t h e price of social revolution to those w h o m i g h t con-
t e m p l a t e it in t h e f u t u r e . T h e C o m m u n a r d s d e f e n d e d themselves as well
as they could, b u t f o r t h e m , it was t h e national g o v e r n m e n t a n d n o t t h e
C o m m u n e which was o n trial. T h e h a r s h e r t h e s e n t e n c e s t h e g o v e r n m e n t
m e t e d out, t h e m o r e it proved its own m o r a l b a n k r u p t c y a n d guilt.
In t h e w o m e n ' s trials, a f o u r t h issue was at stake f o r t h e g o v e r n m e n t a n d
its conservative supporters: t h e n a t u r e of w o m a n . T h e y wanted to know
what kind of w o m e n these furies of t h e C o m m u n e were a n d what h a d pro-
voked t h e m to t h e crimes e v e r y o n e was certain they h a d c o m m i t t e d . Why
h a d n ' t they left this conflict to t h e m e n ? Why h a d n ' t they stayed at h o m e
with their children? Why h a d they j o i n e d in t h e fighting? Were they an
a b e r r a t i o n , or were all w o m e n potential petroleuses a n d gun-wielding fu-
ries?
iQ1
1 12
T h e q u e s t i o n s w e n t to t h e c o r e of h u m a n n a t u r e a n d h u m a n relations.
If w o m e n were not what m e n (and women like Augustine-Melvine
B l a n c h e c o t t e ) b e l i e v e d t h e m t o b e , w h a t w e r e t h e y ? If t h e y w e r e n o t p a c i -
fists b y n a t u r e , t h e n h o w d i d t h e y d i f f e r f r o m m e n ? A n d if all w o m e n w e r e
p o t e n t i a l furies, w h a t was to p r e v e n t t h e m f r o m a t t e m p t i n g to seize politi-
cal p o w e r f r o m m e n , f r o m t u r n i n g i n t o " t h e m o n s t r o u s r e g i m e n t of
w o m e n " ? 2 T h e r a m i f i c a t i o n s of t h e s e q u e s t i o n s w e r e e n o r m o u s , f o r c o n -
s t r u c t i o n s of f e m i n i n i t y a n d masculinity w e r e diametrically d e f i n e d , a n d
c h a n g e s in t h e d e f i n i t i o n o r c o n s t r u c t i o n of f e m a l e n e s s a u t o m a t i c a l l y chal-
l e n g e d t h e d e f i n i t i o n o r c o n s t r u c t i o n o f m a l e n e s s . T h e m e n ' s trials r a i s e d
n o c o m p a r a b l e q u e s t i o n s ; e x p l a n a t i o n s o f t h e i r a c t i o n s lay r e a d i l y t o h a n d .
M e n w e r e e x p e c t e d t o h a v e p o l i t i c a l c o n v i c t i o n s , class i n t e r e s t s , a n d self-
i n t e r e s t s , as w e l l as t h e c a p a c i t y f o r v i o l e n c e . F o r t h e m , r e v o l u t i o n w a s r e p -
r e h e n s i b l e , a n d t h e y w o u l d b e p u n i s h e d f o r it, b u t it w a s a l s o e x p l i c a b l e ;
f o r w o m e n , it w a s b o t h r e p r e h e n s i b l e and i n e x p l i c a b l e .
Prisons a n d Prisoners
T h e n u m b e r of m e n , w o m e n , a n d c h i l d r e n w h o left Paris u n d e r arrest,

as well as t h e n u m b e r w h o a r r i v e d i n Versailles, is u n c l e a r . S o m a n y p e o p l e
w e r e e x e c u t e d e n r o u t e , so m a n y a r r i v e d , a n d so m a n y w e r e s e n t o n t o o t h -
e r p r i s o n s t o b e h e l d f o r trial t h a t n o o n e c o u l d k e e p t r a c k o f t h e m . E v e n
the figures u s e d in t h e N a t i o n a l Assembly's official r e p o r t o n t h e C o m -
m u n e a r e n o t e n t i r e l y c o n s i s t e n t . T h e m o s t f r e q u e n t l y c i t e d figures f o r pris-
o n e r s w h o a r r i v e d in V e r s a i l l e s a r e 1 , 0 5 1 w o m e n , 3 2 , 6 1 4 m e n ( c a t e g o r i z e d
as civilians, a l t h o u g h m o s t o f t h e m w e r e m e m b e r s o f t h e N a t i o n a l G u a r d ) ,
6 5 1 c h i l d r e n a n d 5 , 0 0 0 m e m b e r s o f t h e m i l i t a r y w h o w e r e in P a r i s w h e n
t h e c o n f l i c t e n d e d ( t h e vast m a j o r i t y o f w h o m w e r e f r e e d w i t h o u t trial). Ver-
sailles c o u l d n o t p o s s i b l y h o u s e f o r t y t h o u s a n d p r i s o n e r s ; s o t w e n t y t h o u -
s a n d w e r e p a c k e d off to b e i n c a r c e r a t e d in t h e h o l d s of ships, a n d eight
t h o u s a n d w e r e t r a n s f e r r e d to coastal fortresses, w h e r e they w e r e h e l d in
dreadful conditions for months.3
F o r t h o s e w h o r e m a i n e d i n Versailles, t h e r e w e r e , as F r a n k J e l l i n e k suc-
c i n c t l y o b s e r v e d , " f o u r h e l l s c a l l e d p r i s o n s , " w h e r e m e n a n d w o m e n , chil-
d r e n a n d adults, were i n c a r c e r a t e d . 4 P e o p l e w e r e c r a m m e d into t h e cellars
o f t h e G r a n d e s E c u r i e s a n d t h e O r a n g e r i e a t t h e C h a t e a u d e Versailles, t h e
stables of t h e Saint-Cyr military school, a n d t h e b u i l d i n g s , stables, a n d o p e n
fields at t h e S a t o r y docks. Lissagaray's d e s c r i p t i o n of t h e c o n d i t i o n s at t h e
c h a t e a u a n d t h e r i d i n g school, b a s e d n o t o n his o w n observations, since
Women on Trial 1 gg
h e h a d e s c a p e d arrest, b u t o n those of this friends, convey s o m e of t h e hor-

r o r that awaited t h e p r i s o n e r s after their m a r c h f r o m Paris.
Into these damp, loathsome cellars, where light and air penetrated only
through a few narrow openings, the captives were crowded, without straw
during the first days. When they did get straw, it was soon reduced to mere
dung. [There was] no water to wash with, no means of changing their rags.
Relatives who brought linen were brutally repulsed. Twice a day, in a trough,
they got a yellowish liquid, a slop. . . . There were no doctors. Gangrene at-
tacked the wounded; ophthalmia broke out; deliriousness became chronic.
In the night, cries, groans of the fever stricken, and howls of the mad min-
gled together. The gendarmes [watched], their guns loaded, more merciless
than ever.5
T h e " w o r s t " m a l e p r i s o n e r s w e r e h e l d i n e v e n g r i m m e r c i r c u m s t a n c e s , in
t h e so-called L i o n ' s D e n u n d e r t h e r e d m a r b l e staircase to t h e c h a t e a u ' s
terrace. T h e p r i s o n e r s i n c a r c e r a t e d t h e r e e n d u r e d u t t e r darkness, stiffling
heat, a n d virtual starvation.6
S a t o r y , in c o n t r a s t , w a s " h e l l i n t h e o p e n air. " 7 T h e l a r g e clay p l a t e a u sur-
r o u n d e d b y h i g h walls " h o u s e d " b o t h m a l e a n d f e m a l e p r i s o n e r s . T h i r t e e n
h u n d r e d h u d d l e d inside t h e buildings; h u n d r e d s m o r e lived o u t of d o o r s ,
s u b j e c t e d in t u r n t o s u n a n d r a i n , h e a t a n d c o l d . 8 O n e w o m a n p r i s o n e r
w h o arrived at Satory o n T h u r s d a y evening, May 25, d e s c r i b e d t h e s c e n e
t o Lissagaray.
Many of us had died on the way; we had [eaten] nothing since morning. It
was still daylight. We saw a great crowd of prisoners. The women were apart
in a shed by the entrance. We joined them.
They told us there was a pond. Dying of thirst, we rushed to it. The first
who drank uttered a loud cry and vomited. "Oh, the wretches! they make us
drink the blood of our own people." For since evening the wounded had
gone there to bathe their wounds. Thirst tormented us so cruelly, that some
had the courage to rinse out their mouths with this bloody water.
The shed was already full, and we were forced to lie on the earth in
groups of about 200. An officer came and said to us, "Vile creatures! Listen
to the order I give: 'Gendarmes, at the first who moves, fire on these
whores!'"
At ten o'clock we heard gun shots quite near us. We jumped up. "Lie
down, wretches!" cried the gendarmes, taking aim at us. They had shot some
prisoners a few steps from us. We thought the bullets would pass through our
1 12
heads. . . . The gendarmes . . . grumbled at those who writhed with terror and
cold, "Don't be impatient. Your turn is coming." At daybreak we saw the dead. 9
Thursday night had been merely a prelude to the horrors that would fol-
low. O n Friday the rain began, and the guards continued to force the pris-
oners to lie on the ground, now mud, at night. T h e w o u n d e d and sick did
n o t survive the experience. T h e night killings continued; prisoners were
given picks and shovels to dig their own graves before they were shot. Holes
were hacked in the walls of the shelters and the muzzles of machine guns
inserted and sometimes used. 1 0 T h e only source of water was the p o n d , and
the prisoners drank f r o m it when, as Louise Michel later wrote, they "were
too thirsty and when the heavy rain which was falling on t h e m had swept
away the pink foam." 1 1 This particular horror, being forced into a f o r m of
cannibalism, into drinking water tainted with their comrades' blood, which
symbolized the inhumanity of the Versailles government in C o m m u n a r d
memoirs, escaped notice, or at least comment, by the bourgeois visitors to
the camp.
O t h e r horrors did not, however. T h e correspondent for the Standard,
o n e of the first journalists to visit Satory, was appalled at what he found.
When he arrived on the twenty-eighth, it had been raining for forty-eight
hours. As his carriage a p p r o a c h e d the prison, it sank in the m u d halfway
u p to its axles. T h e prison yard and surrounding area was an ankle-deep
"sea of m u d . " T h r e e to four thousand male prisoners who had spent the
night out of doors, were "drenched through, blue with cold and misery,
hopeless and disheartened." Their only shelter f r o m the rain had been
some straw, which a few still held over their heads. Indoors, the prisoners
were dry, but the "stench" in the m e n ' s barracks and the "close, noisome
smell" of the women's were overwhelming. 1 2
T h e most painful sight of all, for the correspondent, was the incarcerat-
ed women. Bad as he believed many of t h e m were, he felt his presence was
"an intrusion u p o n their misery." H e comforted himself and his readers
with the thought that "with t h e m the worst was probably over. T h e busy
horrors of the fight, the fear of instant execution, the long, weary tramp
to Versailles, the jeers of the brutal crowd of Versailles, these had b e e n suf-
fered and were past. T h e r e r e m a i n e d only a term of imprisonment of more
or less duration." 1 3
O t h e r newspapers that were sympathetic to the C o m m u n e r e p o r t e d
m o r e briefly, but nevertheless critically, on the conditions at Satory. O n the
thirty-first, the New York Times, citing Le Soiras its source, r e p o r t e d that "the
prisoners at Satory are in a dreadful state. . . . thousands sleep without shel-
ter in the m u d . T h e r e is n o food but black bread and the water is insuffi-
Women on Trial 1 gg
cient. T h e women are h u d d l e d with the men. T h e people cease to count

the executions, there have been so many." 1 4 T h e pro-Versailles press, in
contrast, ignored the conditions of the prisons and continued to report on
the character and actions of the Communards, especially the women, to
titillate their readers. T h e New York Tribune, for instance, strung together
paragraph-long excerpts f r o m British and American newspapers u n d e r
headlines including "The H o r r o r of Victory: Desperate Acts of the Female
Insurgents," "Young Women Buried in the Ruins," "A Woman W h o H a d
Killed Four Men Is Captured and Shot," and "The Captured Men and
Women at Satory." Despite its headline, the last excerpt included only what
the Standard correspondent had written about the female prisoners. 1 5
An additional prison for women was created on the r u e des Chantiers.
Here, the women sat and slept on the floor, at first on the wood itself, even-
tually on bundles of straw. Their clothing was dirty and torn. For weeks,
they were forbidden to see their families who tried to bring t h e m clothing
and food. Lice swarmed on the floors. Some of the women had had n o in-
volvement with the C o m m u n e ; others, like Louise Michel, who was trans-
ferred there, had been devoted communardes. Some went insane; some
survived. Constantly guarded, the women had n o privacy, and they felt the
lack of it m o r e than did the male prisoners since the guards were m e n . 1 6
T h e physical characteristics of the prisoners interested the visitors as
much as their physical surroundings did, since "physiology" was t h o u g h t
to reveal character. T h e same would be true during the trials. Physiologists
regarded the mind or "mental life" as a manifestation or product of "the
intricately organized physical stuff composing the h u m a n body." Healthy
and pathological anatomies, identifiable by sight, revealed a person's men-
tal and moral condition. Facial features or physiognomy were n o t the only
indicators of mental health and illness, b u t they were particularly impor-
tant signs. 17
T h e popular version of physiology to which the prison visitors sub-
scribed was particularly appealing to the bourgeoisie because it considered
class-based behavior as well as innate physical characteristics as indicators
of mental life, values, character, and personality. This adaptation of physi-
ological theory was particularly useful for conservatives who believed that
the C o m m u n e was a proletarian revolution. Visual inspection could de-
termine a prisoner's class and guilt or innocence, simultaneously. Bour-
geois-looking m e n and feminine (i.e., bourgeois-looking) women looked
innocent and were presumed to be innocent; proletarian-looking m e n and
u n f e m i n i n e (proletarian-looking) women looked guilty and were pre-
sumed to be guilty.
T h e foreign correspondent for the Standard subscribed to this popular-
1 12
ized theory of physiology as thoroughly as anyone. Searching the faces of

the male prisoners, he told his readers that "such a collection of villainous
faces, low, scowling foreheads, broad animal chins and mouths, and heads
of the convict type, were probably never seen together before." 1 8 H e felt
n o d o u b t about these men. Their features revealed t h e m to be dangerous
and deserving of p u n i s h m e n t (and to be proletarians). A m o n g these obvi-
ous villains were some who "lacked the ferocity, the vigour, and the dogged
sullenness or defiant boldness of their fellows." These m e n looked "miser-
able and downhearted"; they bore "on their faces the bourgeoise [sic]
type." T h e correspondent was convinced that they had b e e n pressed into
service against their will or h a d even b e e n falsely arrested. H e wanted to
free them instantly, especially a "bright, bold-faced lad of 14 or 15 [who
was] respectably dressed." H e was h o p e f u l for the lad, however, believing
that "his face" would be a "sufficient passport" when he was questioned by
the authorities. 1 9
A second observer, q u o t e d at length in W. P. Fetridge's 1871 history of
the C o m m u n e , echoed these opinions. Having c o m m e n t e d on the num-
ber of "ignoble faces, and with such a vile expression," which h e saw a m o n g
the prisoners, he opined that "it was almost in vain to seek a countenance
that would not have c o n d e m n e d its owner in the eyes of the most lenient
physiognomist. " 2 0
Women were subjected to the same j u d g m e n t , b u t with an extra twist. In
addition to the physical features and d e m e a n o r by which the character and
class of both m e n and women were d e t e r m i n e d and j u d g e d , clothing and
hygiene served as indicators of femininity for the women. Women who
were truly feminine (i.e., innocent) cared about their appearance even in
settings of extreme deprivation. T h a t cleanliness and a concern with hair
and clothing were class-differentiated behaviors was irrelevant, since class
was essentially what the voyeurs were judging. T h e women who retained
bourgeois female habits of cleanliness and neatness looked innocent and
were presumed innocent; those who appeared n o t to care about hygiene
and personal appearance, especially their hair and clothing, looked guilty
and were presumed guilty.
T h e Standard correspondent understood the criteria for j u d g i n g
women's guilt and innocence as well as anyone did. O n e g r o u p "stared
boldly and defiantly" at him, "with faces from which all show of modesty
had disappeared years ago." These women were "ferocious-looking vira-
goes, the tricoteuses of the last revolution, the furies who p o u r e d blazing pe-
troleum u p o n the heads of the troops as they advanced in this insurrec-
tion ." A second g r o u p "looked down, abashed at the position and company
in which they had f o u n d themselves." These were "mild, frightened-look-
ing creatures, who had probably stood by some husband they loved on the
Women on Trial 1 gg
barricades, their love overcoming their fear." The first were dressed "in
rags with wild hair, u n k e m p t and matted, falling on their shoulders"; the
second, "in decent clothing, and [they] had m a d e some efforts to tidy their
hair, and to preserve the look of women." 2 1 W h o was guilty and who was
innocent (or, at least, less guilty) n e e d e d n o f u r t h e r explication.
Where the Standard correspondent saw strong female revolutionaries
and viragoes and misled but devoted and moral wives, others saw immoral
and "fallen" women. T h e female prisoners, o n e anonymous journalist re-
ported, were "for the most part such as are commonly f o u n d in the neigh-
b o r h o o d of soldiers' barracks, or in the lowest outskirts of Paris, squalid
and dangerous localities, of which sketches are to be read in the pages of
Sue and other r o m a n c e writers, whose taste it is to dive into the lowest
depths of h u m a n depravity and degradation." 2 2 In the trials, evidence of
immorality would be taken as proof of other crimes. Only women who were
sexually monogamous, that is, married, living with their husbands, and free
of accusations of promiscuity, would have a chance of proving their inno-
cence. 2 3
T h e confusing and mesmerizing women were those whose appearance
mixed bourgeois and unbourgeois elements. Fetridge's journalist was fas-
cinated, for instance, by a girl, "slender and well f o r m e d , with a profusion
of fair hair . . . [and] blue eyes." Such features would generally signal in-
nocence to bourgeois observers. Yet h e r hair was "terribly dirty and tan-
gled," h e r eyes were "shifting," and she had "the expression of a wild ani-
mal . . . as she roved restlessly u p and down o n e end of a room, keeping
close to the wall, brushing against it as a hyena does against the bars in its
monotonous, weary pacing of its narrow prison." 2 4 Such signs of guilt (and
madness) overwhelmed the signs of innocence, as the analogy of the pris-
oner to the hyena, rather than to a lioness or other revered female animal,
reveals.
A third bourgeois observer, Edouard Dangin, visited the prison for
women o n the rue des Chantiers nearly a m o n t h later, primarily to disarm
the continuing criticism of the government's treatment of the women. 2 5
Conditions had changed somewhat since the first days, but bourgeois the-
ories and perceptions had not. Dangin r e p o r t e d that some of the women
had fixed their hair and had "an honest and p r o p e r appearance"; others
had u n k e m p t hair and clothing that revealed "their moral state and social
position." Some had retained the "instincts of propriety which the woman
should never lose" and had washed their linen and h u n g it u p to dry; oth-
ers had not. As before, the outward appearance of what the bourgeoisie
defined as femininity was read as a sign of innocence. Conversely, neglect
of a p p e a r a n c e — u n c o m b e d hair, disorderly clothing, and unwashed
linen—was read as a sign of inferior social class, immorality, and guilt.
1 12
The condition of the prisons and the female prisoners presented a

dilemma for the m e n who visited them which the journalists a m o n g t h e m
implicitly passed on to their readers. If the women were guilty, especially
of incendiarism, they n e e d e d to be punished. But they had n o t been
proved guilty yet, and they were still women. If they were n o t guilty of great
crimes, and journalists d o u b t e d they were in many cases (a j u d g m e n t that
perhaps was supported by the government's eventual release of 643
women without trial), then the dreadful conditions to which they were sub-
jected were wrong as were those who officially or tacitly approved of them.
Even if the women were guilty of crimes, subjecting t h e m to i n h u m a n e
conditions made m e n who were socialized to protect women (a standard
rallying cry for male soldiers was the protection of women and children)
uneasy. Lieutenant Guinez, appointed to defend o n e of the five defendants
in the first female trial, expressed the dilemma. Asking for leniency for his
client, h e recounted a personal experience f r o m the end of the C o m m u n e .
"I was at Versailles," h e told the court. "I was watching a convoy of prison-
ers a m o n g which there were several women who had covered their faces.
Amid the screams that were directed at them, a femme du monde, an old
woman, thinking I had some power to protect these u n f o r t u n a t e women,
approached m e and said, 'Have pity, Monsieur, these are women!'" "These
few words, spoken with simplicity and a very military passion," the press re-
ported, "provoked a m u r m u r of approval in the audience." 2 6
Uneasiness did n o t lead everyone to press for leniency, however. T h e
government and military officials who tried the prisoners reacted in anger
to the challenge the c o m m u n a r d e s had posed to their g e n d e r conceptu-
alizations and asked for and gave harsh sentences to the women, sentences
thatjustified (in their eyes at least) the conditions u n d e r which the women
had been held. T h e sentences did n o t ultimately resolve the anxiety of
bourgeois men, however, although that was the intention. T h e m o r e vio-
lent the women were t h o u g h t to have b e e n and the greater the crimes for
which they were convicted, the m o r e they threatened to u n d e r m i n e the
gender beliefs and values of their captors. Punishment would n o t remove
the threat that the unruly women of the C o m m u n e had posed to the bour-
geois understanding of women and the society it had created.
The Debate
Reports on the female prisoners were part of a debate about the com-
m u n a r d e s and the nature of woman that took place while people waited
for the trials to begin. In the beginning, this discussion included criticism
Women on Trial 1 gg
of the bourgeoises who had attacked the convoys of prisoners throughout

April and May and especially at the e n d of May. But once the prisoners were
out of sight and the bourgeoises had returned, figuratively if not literally,
to their p r o p e r places, concern focused o n the c o m m u n a r d e s and not
their female attackers. T h e knowledge that female violence had crossed
class and political lines did not disappear, however, and the m e m o r y of the
conservative burgeoises who had become unruly women hovered silently
over the ensuing debate about woman's nature, even though they were not
on trial. Exacerbating the ambiguity were the bourgeois origins of leading
c o m m u n a r d e s (women like Louise Michel, Andre Leo, and Elizabeth
Dmietrieff), together with their bourgeois clothing and their good educa-
tions. Working-class c o m m u n a r d e s were n o t the only women who had bro-
ken the bonds of w o m a n h o o d .
f r a n c i s q u e Sarcey's article "Les alienistes" inaugurated the post-Com-
m u n e debate about the nature of women even though it appeared before
the fighting had e n d e d . 2 7 Sarcey and his physician informant gave a "psy-
chological" explanation for the "savage fury" of the C o m m u n a r d s and
petroleuses, which attributed women's actions to their nature. T h e Com-
m u n a r d s were suffering from a "mental d e r a n g e m e n t " caused by the
breaking of their spirit during the Prussian siege. T h e women were m o r e
dangerous and had d o n e more evil than the men, however, because their
"brains were weaker and their sensibilities livelier." In short, it was women's
nature, not an aberration of it, that accounted for their behavior. 2 8
Sarcey did not believe this contagion of madness accounted for all the
communardes, however. In particular it did n o t account for their leaders
who, Sarcey believed, had not been affected by the madness and instead
had "schemingly contributed to spread [it]." Sarcey left them u n n a m e d ,
but those who knew what they were doing and "cold-bloodedly" incited
others to crime included, if they were not limited to, the female orators.
These were often identified as bourgeoises, as they had b e e n just two weeks
earlier in Lix's illustration of a female club for Le Monde Illustre.29
Five days after Sarcey's article, Le Gaulois and Le Figaro broached the is-
sue of woman's nature again. While the fires still b u r n e d , the executions
still raged, and the prisoners flowed into Versailles, both newspapers de-
voted part of their front pages to an article, "La f e m m e libre," by Francis
Marnard, who was drawn to the figure in Lix's pulpit. Ostensibly, "La
f e m m e libre" was about the C o m m u n e . It began with a description of a
dead c o m m u n a r d e . Unlike most of the women who supported the Com-
mune, she was n o t of the working class, as the description m a d e clear: "Her
head, which had b e e n pretty, almost distinguished, in death wore an ex-
pression of fierce hatred." Even "at the last hour, [she] had not clasped h e r
h a n d s t o g e t h e r t o ask G o d f o r t h e f o r g i v e n e s s t h a t m e n c o u l d n o t give h e r "

b u t h a d died with "her right a r m e x t e n d e d . " M a r n a r d s h u d d e r e d with hor-
r o r a n d pity as h e c o n t e m p l a t e d t h e b o d y o f t h i s y o u n g malheureuse (un-
f o r t u n a t e o n e ) , w h o s h o u l d h a v e lived a l o n g l i f e " f u l l o f t h e s a c r e d p a i n o f
maternity" b u t instead h a d b e c o m e an assassin.30
M a r n a r d ' s r e p r e s e n t a t i o n of t h e c o m m u n a r d e u s e d c o m m o n i m a g e s of
b o u r g e o i s w o m e n . H e r pretty, a l m o s t d i s t i n g u i s h e d visage t o l d h i m a n d his
r e a d e r s t h a t she was n o t an o r d i n a r y c o m m u n a r d e o r p e t r o l e u s e . T o rein-
f o r c e t h e p o i n t , h e i d e n t i f i e d h e r as a malheureuse, a n appellation n o t usu-
ally g i v e n t o w o r k i n g - c l a s s w o m e n . E v e n h e r c r i m e — a t t e m p t e d a s s a s s i n a -
t i o n — r e m o v e d h e r f r o m t h e r a n k s of o r d i n a r y d e f e n d e r s of b a r r i c a d e s a n d
b u r n e r s of b u i l d i n g s (in t h e p o p u l a r fiction) a n d associated h e r with C h a r -
l o t t e C o r d a y , t h e u p p e r - c l a s s assassin o f t h e j o u r n a l i s t J e a n - P a u l M a r a t d u r -
i n g t h e F r e n c h Revolution. N e i t h e r poverty n o r t h e h a r d s h i p s of t h e Pruss-
i a n s i e g e n o r t h e c o n t a g i o n o f folly c o u l d e x p l a i n t h e a c t i o n s o f t h i s y o u n g
w o m a n , w h o h a d t a k e n to t h e streets, leaving b e h i n d , at least figuratively,
a life o f d o m e s t i c i t y a n d m a t e r n i t y .
T u r n i n g f r o m t h e d e a d c o m m u n a r d e , M a r n a r d m o v e d o n to his real top-
ic, t h e l i b e r a t e d w o m a n . 3 1 T h e malheureuse m a y have l o o k e d like t h e f e m a l e
o r a t o r i n L i x ' s d r a w i n g , b u t M a r n a r d a l s o saw i n h e r w h a t E u g e n e G i r a r d
saw in t h e p e t r o l e u s e . S h e w a s " a n e m a n c i p a t e d w o m a n , " a f e m i n i s t , a n d
s h e w a s d a n g e r o u s . S h e h a d t r i e d t o kill s o m e o n e ( s e e fig. 17). " D o y o u re-
m e m b e r w i t h w h a t e l a n t h e s e h y b r i d c r e a t u r e s , h a l f b l u e s t o c k i n g s , h a l f tri-
coteuses, rose to attack o u r m a s c u l i n e privileges," h e asked his readers.
" T h e y w a n t e d t o s h a r e e v e r y t h i n g w i t h us, a c a d e m i e s , c o u r t s , clinics; t h e y
d e m a n d e d t h e i r p l a c e in t h e universal suffrage; they w e r e n o l o n g e r c o n -
t e n t w i t h t h e i r h o m e s , w i t h t h e d e a r little i n t i m a t e k i n g d o m w h e r e t h e i r
m o t h e r s lived, a n d l o v e d t h e i r h u s b a n d s , a n d r a i s e d t h e i r c h i l d r e n . T h e
g r a n d universe, t h e entire world, was necessary f o r t h e m to d e v e l o p their
talents a n d f u r n i s h e d a field for their reforms."32
T h e s e h y b r i d w o m e n , t h e s e "literary f e m a l e s , f r e e t h i n k i n g novelists, u n -
classed s c h o o l t e a c h e r s , " w e r e t h e real t h r e a t to civilization. Working-class
w o m e n , in M a r n a r d ' s b o u r g e o i s r e p r e s e n t a t i o n of t h e m , u n d e r s t o o d n o t h -
i n g of politics a n d h a d n o d e s i r e to b e like m e n , e x c e p t w h e n they w e r e led
a s t r a y b y t h e likes o f P a u l e M i n c k , A n d r e L e o , a n d G e o r g e S a n d . 3 3 L e f t
a l o n e , t h e y a s p i r e d s i m p l y "to b u y l i n e n s — l i n e n s a r e t h e f o r t u n e o f h o u s e -
wives—, to m a k e e c o n o m i e s , to s e n d t h e i r c h i l d r e n to a g o o d school." T h e y
w e r e c o n t e n t t o stay i n t h e i r " i n t i m a t e k i n g d o m " a n d t o l e a v e p o l i t i c s t o
m e n . 3 4 T h e y m i g h t o c c a s i o n a l l y s u c c u m b t o t h e "folly o f c o n t a g i o n , " b u t
e v e n t h e n t h e y w e r e l e d by w o m e n like t h e d e a d c o m m u n a r d e , w h o k n e w
w h a t t h e y w e r e d o i n g a n d c h o s e t o d o it.
Women on Trial 1 gg
E m b e d d e d i n M a r n a r d ' s l o g i c is a b o u r g e o i s c o n c e p t u a l i z a t i o n o f g e n -
der, space, a n d w o m a n ' s n a t u r e , a n d a h i s t o r i o g r a p h y of w o m e n ' s revolu-
t i o n a r y activity w h i c h c o n d e m n e d f e m i n i s t s ( e s p e c i a l l y t h o s e w i t h c a r e e r s
in j o u r n a l i s m a n d l i t e r a t u r e — t h e m a l e w r i t e r ' s p r e s e r v e ) . H e p l a c e d t h e m
in a c o n t i n u u m between the tricoteuses of 1793 and the commu-
n a r d e s / p e t r o l e u s e s of 1871, a n d h e c o n t r a s t e d t h e m to w o m e n w h o real-
ized t h a t t h e i r calling was to r e m a i n w i t h i n t h e " i n t i m a t e k i n g d o m " of t h e
h o m e , w h e r e lay p i e t y a n d m o r a l i t y . I n t h e p u b l i c a r e n a w o m e n c o u l d b e -
c o m e " t h e e q u a l o f m a n [ o n l y ] i n h i s l o w e s t vices, i n h i s d a r k e s t p a s s i o n s . "
L i k e Sarcey, M a r n a r d w a s o b s e s s e d w i t h w o m a n ' s n a t u r e a n d not
m a n ' s . 3 5 T h e e f f e c t s of c a r e e r s a n d politics o n m e n w e r e of n o c o n c e r n to
h i m , f o r t h e y w e r e m e n ' s n a t u r a l activities. W h a t w a s i m p r o p e r a n d u n -
n a t u r a l w a s f o r w o m e n t o b e c o m e like m e n , n o t f o r m e n t o b e m e n . I n a
final, c o m p l i c a t e d , l o g i c a l l y i n c o n s i s t e n t , a n d w i d e l y a c c e p t e d s t a t e m e n t o f
bourgeois g e n d e r theory, M a r n a r d declared that w o m e n should prevent,
o r at least s h o u l d try to p r e v e n t , m e n f r o m a c t i n g in a c c o r d a n c e with their
n a t u r e . H a d t h e y d o n e so, t h e w a r b e t w e e n P a r i s a n d V e r s a i l l e s w o u l d n o t
have h a p p e n e d . "When the m a n takes u p arms, the w o m a n o u g h t to take
h i s g u n away f r o m h i m , " M a r n a r d s u g g e s t e d ( a s e n t i m e n t B l a n c h e c o t t e
w o u l d h a v e a p p l a u d e d ) , " u n l e s s t h e c o u n t r y d e m a n d s t h e b l o o d o f all its
children."30 W o m e n , thus, could be held responsible for t h e terrible
b l o o d s h e d of the s e m a i n e sanglante and, i n d e e d , for t h e entire conflict be-
t w e e n P a r i s a n d Versailles. T h e y h a d f a i l e d i n t h e i r f e m a l e d u t y .
T h e g o v e r n m e n t shared the general bourgeois c o n c e r n with the w o m e n
it h a d a r r e s t e d , a n d a l t h o u g h its g e n e r a l r e p o r t w o u l d n o t b e r e l e a s e d u n -
til a f t e r t h e trials, i t s j u d g m e n t o f t h e m t o o k p l a c e l o n g b e f o r e t h e trials b e -
g a n . Its f o c u s w a s n o t o n t h e w o m e n ' s l e a d e r s , b u t o n t h e w o m e n w h o , it
believed, h a d constituted the bulk of the C o m m u n e ' s f e m a l e s u p p o r t e r s .
D e e p l y c o n v i n c e d t h a t t h e c o m m u n a r d e s w e r e s e x u a l l y p r o m i s c u o u s , if n o t
actual prostitutes, the g o v e r n m e n t agents w h o s o u g h t o u t witnesses a n d
compiled dossiers repeatedly asked a b o u t w o m e n ' s sexual behavior.37 Any
s e x u a l l i a i s o n o u t s i d e o f m a r r i a g e w a s i n t e r p r e t e d as a s i g n o f c o r r u p t i o n .
T h e Trials
O n A u g u s t 7, 1 8 7 1 , t h e first o f t h e g r e a t s h o w t r i a l s o f t h e P a r i s C o m -
m u n e b e g a n . T e n weeks h a d p a s s e d since t h e Versailles t r o o p s h a d filed
into Paris o n t h e n i g h t of May 21 a n d t h e b l o o d l e t t i n g h a d b e g u n . N o w t h e
survivors w h o h a d n o t e s c a p e d a r r e s t w e r e to m e e t their accusers a n d
j u d g e s . T h e trial was h e l d in a hall t h a t s e a t e d two t h o u s a n d spectators. O n
t h e wall h u n g a l a r g e c r u c i f i x , a s i g n w i t h m u l t i p l e m e a n i n g s f o r t h e ac-
c u s e d . F o r a l m o s t a m o n t h ( A u g u s t 7 t o S e p t e m b e r 3), f i f t e e n m e m b e r s o f
t h e C o m m u n e a n d t w o o f t h e N a t i o n a l G u a r d C e n t r a l C o m m i t t e e sat to-
g e t h e r i n its s h a d o w .
T h e a r r e s t e d l e a d e r s , l i k e all t h e p r i s o n e r s , w e r e t r i e d b e f o r e m i l i t a r y tri-
b u n a l s o r c o u r t s m a r t i a l (conseils de guerre), o s t e n s i b l y b e c a u s e t h e d e p a r t -
m e n t s o f t h e S e i n e a n d S e i n e - e t - O i s e w e r e u n d e r m a r t i a l law. ( T h e Ver-
sailles g o v e r n m e n t e s t a b l i s h e d m a r t i a l law o n A p r i l 6 w h e n t h e f i g h t i n g
between Paris a n d t h e national g o v e r n m e n t began.) T h e government
c o u l d easily h a v e r e t u r n e d t h e a r e a t o civilian law a n d t r i e d t h e m e n i n civil-
i a n c o u r t s . It c h o s e n o t t o d o so b e c a u s e t h e m i l i t a r y c o u r t s w e r e likely t o
b e m o r e s e v e r e . W h i l e it w a s i n e v i t a b l e t h a t t h e l o s e r s i n t h i s c o n f l i c t w o u l d
b e tried by t h e winners, t h e use of courts martial m e a n t that t h e p r i s o n e r s
w o u l d b e j u d g e d by t h e m e n a g a i n s t w h o m they h a d f o u g h t , o r at least w e r e
b e l i e v e d t o h a v e f o u g h t , r a t h e r t h a n b y civilians. It a l s o m e a n t t h a t e v e r y -
o n e was tried f o r c r i m i n a l r a t h e r t h a n political o f f e n s e s . F o r t h e l e a d e r s of
t h e C o m m u n e as w e l l as its j o u r n a l i s t s , s u c h c h a r g e s m e a n t n o t o n l y t h a t
t h e c r i m e s w i t h w h i c h t h e y w e r e c h a r g e d b o r e little o r n o r e l a t i o n t o w h a t
they h a d actually d o n e d u r i n g t h e C o m m u n e b u t also that they c o u l d b e
s e n t e n c e d to d e a t h , a p u n i s h m e n t that h a d b e e n abolished for political
c r i m e s in 1848.
A l t h o u g h t h e vast m a j o r i t y o f a r r e s t s , i n t e r r o g a t i o n s , trials, a n d c o n v i c -
tions t o o k place within a s h o r t p e r i o d of time, t h o u s a n d s m o r e were m a d e
o v e r a p e r i o d o f m o n t h s a n d y e a r s . As a r e s u l t t h e g o v e r n m e n t ' s o w n fig-
u r e s c h a n g e d c o n s t a n t l y . By J a n u a r y 1 8 7 2 t h e g o v e r n m e n t h a d a r r e s t e d
3 8 , 4 9 9 p e o p l e . Twenty-two c o u r t s m a r t i a l w e r e sitting; 1 0 , 4 4 8 h a d b e e n
h a d b e e n
tried; a n d 8,535 c o n v i c t e d . 3 8 By t h e b e g i n n i n g o f 1 8 7 5 , t h e gov-
e r n m e n t h a d processed 50,559 prisoners. Of that n u m b e r 13,230 m e n ,
158 w o m e n , a n d 6 2 c h i l d r e n u n d e r t h e a g e of sixteen h a d b e e n c o n v i c t e d
and sentenced.39
T h e g o v e r n m e n t was c o n v i n c e d t h a t far m o r e w o m e n h a d d e f e n d e d t h e
C o m m u n e , or to use the g o v e r n m e n t ' s language, h a d c o m m i t t e d crimes
i n t h e n a m e o f t h e C o m m u n e , t h a n it w a s a b l e t o a r r e s t , a n d t h a t f a r m o r e
o f t h e a r r e s t e d w o m e n w e r e g u i l t y t h a n it w a s a b l e t o p r o v e . T h e p r o b l e m
of p r o o f was twofold, A p p e r t e x p l a i n e d in his final r e p o r t t o t h e N a t i o n a l
A s s e m b l y . First, m a n y w o m e n h a d e s c a p e d a r r e s t e v e n t h o u g h t h e y h a d
" b e e n s e e n f i g h t i n g in t h e r a n k s of t h e N a t i o n a l G u a r d , l i g h t i n g fires,
s l a u g h t e r i n g hostages, a n d killing officers a n d soldiers in c o l d b l o o d in t h e
s t r e e t s o f P a r i s . " T h e s o l d i e r s h a d f o u n d it h a r d t o b e l i e v e t h a t w o m e n w e r e
capable of such violence, h e e x p l a i n e d , a n d h a d b e e n r e l u c t a n t to arrest
t h e m u n l e s s they h a d w e a p o n s in t h e i r h a n d s o r h a d b e e n s i n g l e d o u t by
Women on Trial 1 gg
public indignation. Otherwise they h a d allowed "the i m m u n i t y that o u g h t

to cover t h e i r sex" to i n f l u e n c e t h e i r decisions a n d h a d n o t a r r e s t e d
them.40
Second, to m a k e matters worse, the g o v e r n m e n t h a d h a d to f r e e t h e ma-
jority of the f e m a l e prisoners b e c a u s e witnesses h a d n o t b e e n able to iden-
tify t h e m . ( O f t h e 1 , 0 5 1 w o m e n w h o w e r e t a k e n t o Versailles, o n l y 1 6 8 w e r e
b r o u g h t b e f o r e t h e conseils d e g u e r r e . Thirty-three w o m e n d i e d in p r i s o n
o r w e r e r e m a n d e d t o t h e civil c o u r t s y s t e m ; 2 0 2 w e r e r e l e a s e d f o r l a c k o f
e v i d e n c e ; 8 1 6 w e r e i n t e r r o g a t e d , a n d of t h e s e a n a d d i t i o n a l 6 4 8 w e r e f r e e d
b e f o r e trial.) B e c a u s e t h e w o m e n h a d n o " f i x e d a b o d e , f o l l o w i n g t h e b a t a l -
lions of g u a r d s m e n w h o m o v e d e v e r y day," A p p e r t m a i n t a i n e d , "they h a d
left in t h e i r wake t h e m e m o r y of t h e i r exaltation [ a n d ] t h e i r crimes, b u t
the witnesses h a d n o t b e e n able to identify in the prisoners, the m a d w o m e n
w h o m they h a d seen earlier with g u n s in their h a n d s a n d dressed in the
c o s t u m e s of t h e N a t i o n a l G u a r d a n d t h e m a r i n e s . " 4 1
C e r t a i n l y c a n t i n i e r e s a n d a m b u l a n c i e r e s h a d m o v e d a r o u n d t h e city w i t h
t h e N a t i o n a l G u a r d , b u t A p p e r t ' s a s s u m p t i o n t h a t m o s t of t h e c o m m u -
n a r d e s h a d b e e n c a m p f o l l o w e r s is n o t s u p p o r t e d b y o t h e r t e x t s , w h i c h p r e -
s e n t t h e b u i l d i n g a n d d e f e n d i n g o f t h e b a r r i c a d e s as n e i g h b o r h o o d activ-
i t i e s . 4 2 T h e l i t e r a l t r u t h o f A p p e r t ' s s t a t e m e n t is less i m p o r t a n t , h o w e v e r ,
t h a n his certainty t h a t t h e w o m e n w h o were r e l e a s e d w e r e guilty a n d his
c o n s t r u c t i o n o f t h e i r activities a n d c h a r a c t e r , f o r t h e s e h a d e x i s t e d b e f o r e
t h e w o m e n w e r e a r r e s t e d , a n d t h e y w o u l d h e l p t o c o n v i c t t h e f e m a l e pris-
o n e r s w h o w e n t t o trial.
V i e w e d as a n i n q u i r y i n t o g u i l t o r i n n o c e n c e , t h e t r i a l s a r e d e e p l y t r o u -
bling. Lawyers assigned to the p r i s o n e r s d i d n o t m e e t with t h e m a n d o f t e n
failed to a p p e a r in c o u r t . S p e c t a t o r s hissed at t h e p r i s o n e r s a n d their
lawyers. W i t n e s s e s w h o h a d m a d e s t a t e m e n t s t o p r o s e c u t o r s b e f o r e t h e tri-
als c h a n g e d t h e i r t e s t i m o n y o r f a i l e d t o a p p e a r . J u d g e s e x p r e s s e d t h e i r
o p i n i o n s o n t h e g u i l t o f t h e d e f e n d a n t s d u r i n g t h e trials. I m p a r t i a l i t y w a s
n o t t h e p r i m a r y i s s u e , h o w e v e r . T h e s e w e r e s h o w trials, o r a t l e a s t t h e f i r s t
p r o s e c u t i o n s were. T h e y w e r e d e s i g n e d to assuage t h e b o u r g e o i s desire f o r
v e n g e a n c e a n d t o s t a n d as a w a r n i n g f o r a n y o n e c o n t e m p l a t i n g r e v o l u -
t i o n a r y activity i n t h e f u t u r e , n o t t o d e t e r m i n e t h e j u s t n e s s o f t h e C o m -
m u n e ' s c a u s e o r its d e f e n d e r s ' a c t i o n s . E v i d e n c e w a s o f little i m p o r t a n c e ,
as w a s t h e t e s t i m o n y o f t h e d e f e n d a n t s t h e m s e l v e s . T h e j u d g e s , p r o s e c u -
tors, spectators, a n d press h a d d e t e r m i n e d in a d v a n c e t h a t t h e p r i s o n e r s
w e r e guilty. I n m o s t cases, all t h a t r e m a i n e d t o b e d e t e r m i n e d a t t h e trial
were t h e sentences of the accused, a l t h o u g h the j u d g e s f o u n d a q u a r t e r of
t h e w o m e n a n d 15 p e r c e n t of t h e m e n to b e i n n o c e n t of t h e c h a r g e s a n d
set t h e m f r e e .
T h e trials of women and m e n were similar in many regards. Justice was

summary, trials were short, and sentences bore little relation to the crimes
with which the defendants were charged. Both women and m e n were sen-
tenced to death, deportation, and various forms of imprisonment. Both
were frequently unrepresented by lawyers. Both were taunted by the spec-
tators. Both were tried before partial judges. Both were subjected to the
courts' class biases and desire to wreak vengeance and create examples.
And both c o n f r o n t e d inconsistency a m o n g the courts martial. Those who
were accused of the same crime and appeared before different courts
could receive very different sentences.
Gender did matter, however. T h e major crime with which women were
charged—incendiarism—had been particularly horrifying to the bour-
geois who believed that their homes were the primary target of the work-
ing-class petroleuses. 4 3 The bourgeois wanted them punished, as the attacks
on the women prisoners en route to Versailles had already demonstrated,
and the government was prepared to treat them harshly. Even more im-
portant, the women's trials became a final occasion for the government
and conservative press to assess the causes of the women's actions and to
c o n d e m n the ideas and individuals it believed had led them into their un-
natural acts. T h e theories that had b e e n aired in J u n e would reemerge.
All the trials began with the reading of the defendants' alleged crimes.
For the C o m m u n e leaders, these took the f o r m of a standard catalog of the
C o m m u n e ' s crimes as viewed f r o m Versailles: participation in or support
of the assassination of the hostages; the setting of fires; pillaging; raising
or leading insurrectional troops; and contributing to the criminal inten-
tion to change the f o r m of the government. Most of the leaders who were
tried were guilty only of the last charge and even that could be debated,
since the national government had precipitated the conflict on March 18,
a b a n d o n e d the city, refused to negotiate, and then attacked. Indeed, as re-
publicans, the C o m m u n a r d s ' goal had b e e n to preserve the existing form
of government, not to change it.
T h e message of the accusations and the trial of the C o m m u n e ' s politi-
cal leaders was clear: if you engage in revolution, you will be tried as a
c o m m o n criminal and punished. As an outlet for bourgeois anger, the tri-
al was probably salutary, j u d g i n g by the hissing and shouting at the pris-
oners and the vituperative press coverage in Paris. But as a model for fu-
ture trials and sentencing, its outcome was confusing. Many of the
sentences were indeed harsh. Theophile Ferre and Charles Lullier were (
sentenced to death. (Lullier's sentence was r e d u c e d to transportation
the Board of Pardons; Ferre's was not.) Seven m e n (Adolph Assi,
Billioray, Louis Henri Champy, Dominique Regere, Paschal Grousset,
Women on Trial 1 gg
Ferrat, and Augustin Joseph Verdure) were sentenced to transportation to

a fortified place; two (Francis J o u r d e and Dr. P. Rastoul) to simple trans-
portation; two (Raoul Urbain and Alexis-Louis Trinquet) to hard labor for
life. But two m e n (Victor Clement and Gustave Courbet) received shortjail
sentences, and two (Descamps and Parent) were acquitted. 4 4
T h e Petroleuses
T h e trial of the male leaders was followed immediately by a two-day tri-
al of five women for incendiarism, the crime that was most associated with
women. T h e five were accused of setting fires in the rue de Lille and burn-
ing the Legion d ' H o n n e u r . T h e debate about women flowed f r o m the
press to the courtroom and back again as this and the other trials of women
c o m m e n c e d , influencing both their outcomes and the public reaction to
them.
Journalists' "descriptions" and caricaturists' drawings in the conserva-
tive press had already t u r n e d the petroleuses into the personification of
evil. T h e Figaro reporter laid out two versions of the popular myth in his
first paragraph on the trial, the first representing them as uncivilized and
evil; the second, as u n h u m a n creatures f r o m the netherworld—a repre-
sentation that went well beyond the usual portrayal of the petroleuses:
"The word 'petrole' has taken o n a special m e a n i n g which arouses sinister
ideas since these recent events. T h e n a m e of 'petroleuse' recalls the savage
hords of megeres [she-devils] enrolled u n d e r the orders of the C o m m u n e
who accepted the odious mission of b u r n i n g Paris while the organizers of
the civil war and the builders of the barricades fled." 4 5
The crowd in the courtroom, he reported, had an air of "lively curiosi-
ty" about these women. People expected to see "ruined women, grown pale
from their nightly labors or darkened by the sun, their voices hoarse, their
eyes dull, n o longer f e m i n i n e or masculine, creatures without a sex, with-
out morality, without conscience, without even cynicism, recounting the
0
S "46 Z f l e
i ^ 8 aS t h
°Ugh lhcy Were Scenes « f f u J a r and normal
, Whe" five
PltiM' °dd w o m e n " entered the room, anticipation
ofZ(ZZ a S m e S S a n d a V e r S i 0 n 4 7 T h e s e W O m e n m e t 110 o n e s
, ' ' shards
7 CC
' , "amly WCrC n o t c r e a t m e s w i t h o u t
a sex. The worst that
u l f r '1'1 Aeir
^ ^ ™ ^ -re ugly (a cukura
nose, the second, a m o u t h that had d r u n k violent liquids"- the third
a feroaous' expression; the fourth, "an e n o r m o u s chin"- the fifth n
- and a large m o u t h . Like the Standard r e p ^ ^ d S a ^
D u p o n t d e d u c e d immorality and guilt f r o m these physical defects. These

women, h e declared, had "the ugliness [laideur] of vice, the ugliness that
creeps a r o u n d in dark alleys, the ugliness of the workhouses." 4 8
Similar j u d g m e n t s were m a d e about the m e n ' s appearance and charac-
ter at their trials. LeFigaro reporter described Ferre, for instance, as "a small
man of 25 to 30 [he was 24], with a curved nose, an eagle's beak; glitter-
ing eyes behind his eyeglasses, which constantly shaded them; white teeth
like those of a wild beast." 4 9 Clearly, the reporter had n o question about
his guilt. T h e same was true for Jules Claretie, who suggested that Ferre's
"physiology itself explained the intrepidly ferocious t e m p e r a m e n t of this
fierce and bitter little man." 5 0
C o m m u n a r d s and C o m m u n e supporters also believed in physiology, but
they "saw" their colleagues differently. C o m m u n a r d Gaston Da Costa,
for instance, described Trinquet who, like Ferre, declared his c o m m i t m e n t
to the C o m m u n e at the trial of the leaders, as having "an intelligent and
sympathetic physiognomy." 51 T h e theory had difficulty with the five
petroleuses, however. T h e women had worn their best clothes (which
weren't very good), and two of t h e m had tied ribbons a r o u n d their hair,
o n e green and the other violet with black lace, 5 2 and many m e n f o u n d it
difficult to see in them the malevolent and savage petroleuses.
Ignoring the disparity between the mythical petroleuses and the women
on trial, the prosecutor J o u e n n e recalled "the horrible campaign against
civilization" that had b e g u n on March 18. It was bad e n o u g h that "men
who believe neither in God n o r in the country" had taken control of Paris,
but worse yet that women had "deserted their sacred mission [and] their
influence [over their families] . . . and had b e c o m e moral monstrosities."
Echoing Sarcey's views, the prosecutor declared that these women were
"more dangerous than the most dangerous man." Figuratively, if n o t liter-
ally, they were the "daughters of the she-wolves of 1793." 5 3
Despite the presence of the defendants, who clearly were m e m b e r s of
the working class, J o u e n n e , like Sarcey and Marnard, was distracted by the
women of his own class. Guilty as he was convinced the petroleuses were,
he did n o t hold t h e m solely responsible for their actions. They had been
led astray by doctors who favored "the emancipation of women," and in-
stitutrices like Louise Michel who preached revolution from the pulpits of
churches during the C o m m u n e and taught immoral doctrines to children
in their schools. 5 4 It was the same connection between feminism and the
petroleuses m a d e by Eugene Girard when h e identified the petroleuse in
his caricature as "The emancipated woman shedding light on the world"
(see fig. 17).
Feminists were not literally on trial, however. Instead, five working-class
Women on Trial 1 gg
women were. They ranged in age f r o m twenty-four to thirty-nine. Elisabeth

Retiffe was a cardboard maker and cantiniere; Leontine Suetens, a laun-
dress; Josephine-Marguerite Marchais and Lucie Bocquin, day workers;
and Eulalie Papavoine, a seamstress. Only Lucie Bocquin was married.
Dossiers had been compiled for each of the women, as for most, if n o t all,
prisoners who were brought to trial. 5 5 In court witnesses who had given in-
formation to the prosecutors before the trials, testified about what the
women had done, or what they thought they had done, and about what
they had worn during the C o m m u n e . In this trial, witnesses testified that
they had seen all the women on or near the barricades, but n o o n e had
seen t h e m light fires. 5 6
T h r e e witnesses provided evidence that Elisabeth Retiffe had been an
open supporter of the C o m m u n e . O n e m a n identified h e r as the canti-
niere who had given him ammunition for his gun during the fighting, and
another as having carried food and drink to the barricades. A woman tes-
tified that Retiffe had worn a white blouse and a red scarf and a gun slung
across h e r shoulder—all signs of allegiance to the C o m m u n e . But Leon-
tine Suetens, o n e of the defendants, provided her with an alibi when she
testified that Retiffe had been "completely d r u n k " and had spent the night
in question sleeping with her lover on a mattress at the barricade.
Suetens was similarly accused of having worn a red scarf and a National
Guard u n i f o r m and of carrying a shotgun over h e r shoulder. Eulalie Pa-
pavoine and Lucie Bocquin testified that Suetens had carried eau-de-vie
and wine to the insurgents and had help build the barricades, and worse
yet, a n o t h e r witness testified that she had engaged in pillaging and had
been paid ten francs for h e r help.
J o s e p h i n e Marchais's concierge testified that she had worn a tyrolean,
or cantiniere's, hat (see fig. 9), carried a gun, urged on the C o m m u n a r d
troops, and engaged in pillaging. T h e witness did n o t know if Marchais had
set the fires, but she was "more dangerous, in his opinion, than the Enfants-
Perdus," a military group.
Eulalie Papavoine had been seen wearing a red scarf and carrying a g u n
over h e r shoulder at the Legion d ' H o n n e u r . A witness also testified that
she had helped build the barricades, pillaged, and "participated in orgies
involving stolen wine." Lucie Bocquin had been seen at the Legion d ' H o n -
neur and had carried wine and eau-de-vie to the barricades. She had also,
according to testimony, pillaged wine cellars.
Testimony about the women's revolutionary dress, gun toting, pillaging,
and support for the National Guard identified them as active C o m m u n e
supporters, but it did not m e a n they had set fires. As the Standard corre-
spondent reported, "The act was not brought h o m e to them." 5 7 Worst of
all for the prosecution, o n e might have thought, the government had not
b e e n able to find (and arrest) "a certain femme Masson," reportedly of
Prussian origin, who they believed was "the most guilty" of them all. 58
T h e five women acknowledged that they had supported the C o m m u n e
and had taken care of the wounded and that they had b e e n in the rue des
Lilies and at the Legion d ' H o n n e u r o n the night in question or on other
nights, but they denied that they had set fires. Their lawyers (one of them
appointed at the trial when a n o t h e r did n o t show up) argued that the
women had b e e n ambulancieres and cantinieres, not petroleuses; that they
were p o o r women who n e e d e d the money they were paid by the National
Guard, but that they would have supported the other side if circumstances
had been different; that the charges had n o t been proven; and that the
court should have a soldierly consideration for them as women. T h e pleas
fell o n deaf ears. Elisabeth Retiffe, Eugenie Suetens, and J o s e p h i n e Mar-
chais were c o n d e m n e d to death; Eulalie Papavoine, to deportation; and
Lucie Bocquin, to ten years' solitary confinement. (The appeals board re-
d u c e d the death sentences to deportation and hard labor for life.) 5 9
The sentences immediately provoked consternation, especially since
only two of the seventeen male leaders of the C o m m u n e , whose trial had
e n d e d two days earlier, had been sentenced to death (compared with three
of the five women), and two of the seventeen had been acquitted alto-
gether. 6 0 Government supporters like Jules Claretie agreed with the guilty
verdicts, seeing the women as "spirits of darkness, of brutality, of envy, con-
sumed by wretchedness," but even h e believed the sentences should not be
carried out. 6 1 Part of the difference in sentencing may be accounted for
by the different courts martial before which the m e n and women were tried
(the third and fourth, respectively), but differences of class, education, and
gender were also at play.
Men were t h o u g h t to be naturally interested in politics. Those who led
and participated in the C o m m u n e were seen as having m a d e the wrong po-
litical choice; they had to be punished for it, b u t everyone agreed that they
had a f u n d a m e n t a l right to act in the public arena. Woman's p r o p e r place,
on the other hand, was at h o m e with h e r children. As Prosecutor J o u e n n e
declared, "The legitimate woman [is] the object of o u r affections, of our
respect, when, completely dedicated to the care of the family, she is its
guide and protector." 6 2 A woman was what she did. H e r actions defined
h e r essence. Any woman who left h e r hearth was already acting illegiti-
mately, and she herself ceased to be a legitimate (or feminine) woman.
This notion was a bourgeois fantasy that ignored the fact that economic
survival for working-class families required most women to spend their
days in the paid labor force, not in n u r t u r i n g children and creating moral
Women on Trial 1 gg
havens for their husbands. 6 3 For most Parisians, the notion that a woman's
legitimacy d e p e n d e d on her dedicating all h e r time to the care of her fam-
ily would have seemed nonsensical.
In terms of the trials, J o u e n n e ' s statement about women's "legitimate"
' roles and the "moral monstrosities" they became when they entered the
public sphere had considerable importance. If political activity t u r n e d
women into immoral creatures, then other immoral or illegal activity, es-
pecially sexual activity outside of marriage, could be interpreted as proof
of political activity. Following this logic, the m e n who sought out witnesses
and compiled dossiers repeatedly asked about sexual behavior. 6 4 Lacking
other proof of a woman's participation in the C o m m u n e or, in the case of
the women in this trial, of incendiarism, J o u e n n e t u r n e d to this informa-
tion and to previous criminal convictions to make his case. T h e more the
women's behavior deviated from bourgeois morality, the m o r e guilty they
became.
Thirty-nine-year-old Elisabeth Retiffe had lived with a man for seven
years and then left him because h e beat her. She had been arrested twice,
once for fighting with another woman and once for insulting a policeman.
^Twenty-five-year-old Eugenie Suetens had lived with a man for six years.
! She had previously spent a year in jail for theft. J o s e p h i n e Marchais did n o t
' come from a "good" family. H e r m o t h e r and sister had spent years in jail
i and she herself had spent six months in prison for theft. She had b e e n a
cantiniere for the battalion of h e r lover, and was said to have forced him
to continue fighting when he wanted to desert. These women received
death sentences. 6 5
Twenty-five-year-old Eulalie Papavoine lived with a federe, bore him a
child, and followed him as an ambulanciere. Twenty-eight-year-old Lucie
Marie Bocquin was an adulteress. W h e n h e r h u s b a n d left to j o i n the army,
she fell in love with and moved in with a federe and "abandoned h e r p o o r
little child to follow a bandit." This kind of sexual activity was e n o u g h to
win Papavoine and Bocquin harsh sentences, b u t they did not have the
criminal records of the first three women and were n o t c o n d e m n e d to
death 6 6
Louise Michel
Louise Michel, the most famous of the communardes, was tried alone
on December 17, 1871, before the sixth Conseil de Guerre. She had re-
fused counsel and spoke for herself. O t h e r female leaders, including
Andre Leo, Elizabeth Dmietrieff, and Paule Minck, had escaped arrest,
and Michel was arrested only when she t u r n e d herself in to win f r e e d o m

for her mother. Michel was not as well known in 1871 as she would be lat-
er, even though her n a m e had been invoked at the trial of the five
petroleuses. 6 7 Indeed, some of h e r fame as a revolutionary would come
from her lack of repentance at h e r trial. But she was well e n o u g h known
to attract the press.
Dressed in black, she stood alone before h e r accusers. No violet or green
ribbons relieved the severity of her appearance. She would make n o re-
quest, either implicitly or explicitly, for leniency or forgiveness, n o claim
that she had been falsely arrested or falsely accused. She was a revolution-
ary and would present herself as one. She accepted responsibility for her
actions and, indeed, even for things she had n o t done, including incendi-
arism. 6 8 She declared that she had had n o accomplices. Alone, she had
wanted to "fight the Versaillais with a barrier of flames," but it is unlikely
that she had set fires. She m a d e n o such claims in h e r memoirs, and she
was not identified as a petroleuse.
Judging by her later statements, other confessions were true. She ac-
knowledged both in court and in her history of the C o m m u n e that she had
wanted to assassinate President Thiers and had been stopped by Theophile
Ferre. 6 9 Still other confessions were complicated. She agreed that she had
participated in the assassination of the generals on March 18, although she
was not present when they were killed. If she had b e e n at Montmartre when
the generals wanted to fire o n the people, she said, she "would have had
no hesitation about shooting people who gave orders like those," but still,
she believed they should not have b e e n shot after they were prisoners. To
shoot prisoners was a "villainous act." Unlike virtually everyone else, male
and female alike, she did n o t plead innocence to any charge or claim ex-
tenuating circumstances.
In pleading guilty and claiming responsibility for her actions (whether
they were literally hers or not), Michel d e f e n d e d the C o m m u n e . H e r ac-
tions had b e e n hers alone, she declared. T h e C o m m u n e "had had ab-
solutely nothing to d o with assassinations or burning." It had wanted to
bring about the social revolution, and the social revolution was her "dear-
est wish." She was, and n o o n e d o u b t e d it, "honored to be singled out as
o n e of the promoters of the C o m m u n e . "
But claiming responsibility was more than a way of defending the Com-
m u n e for Michel. It was also an attempt to control h e r own destiny. She
wanted to die. She had had e n o u g h , especially after the government had
executed Ferre. "What I d e m a n d f r o m you," she told h e r judges, "is the
field of Satory, where o u r revolutionary brothers have already fallen. I must
be cut off f r o m society. You have b e e n told that, and the prosecutor is
Women on Trial 1 gg
right. . . . If you let m e live, I will not stop crying for vengeance, and I will
d e n o u n c e the assassins on the Board of Pardons [who had not c o m m u t e d
the sentences of Ferre and twenty-two others] to the vengeance of my
brothers. . . . If you are n o t cowards, kill me."
What Michel's relationship was with Theophile Ferre is an often asked
and largely unanswerable question. He was o n e of the leaders of the Mont-
martre Vigilance Committee whom she praised so highly for his intelli-
gence and a m e m b e r of the C o m m u n e . While they were imprisoned and
awaiting trial in Versailles, they wrote to each other, and h e r letters have of-
ten been interpreted as love letters. H e r desire to die after Ferre was exe-
cuted lends support to the theory that she was in love with him, as does her
visit to his grave when she r e t u r n e d f r o m New Caledonia. Edith Thomas,
Michel's sympathetic biographer, thought that Michel was indeed in love
with the younger Ferre but that her attachment was u n r e q u i t e d . 7 0 Marie
Mullaney regards Thomas's position as an implicit defense of Michel
against conservative accusations that she was a lesbian. 7 1 Whatever Michel
and Ferre felt for each other, speculation about their relationship is sim-
ply an extension of the battle of representations that has s u r r o u n d e d
Michel since she entered the docket in 1871.
T h e court would not grant Michel's death wish, perhaps precisely be-
cause she had asked for it. By the time she was tried it had decided to cre-
ate n o m o r e martyrs by execution, especially of women who, instead of
pleading for mercy as women should and men did, looked her judges defi-
antly in the eye, duplicitously a n n o u n c e d "You are men, and I, I am only a
woman," and then asked for death. And so it sentenced the most famous of
the Commune's unruly women to deportation to a fortified place. W h e n the
sentence was read, Michel declared that she "would have preferred death."
Like the amazon in Lix's pulpit, Louise Michel dominated the scene in
the courtroom (see fig. 15). She was uncowed and unrepentant. From the
beginning to the end of h e r trial, she challenged and defied the generals
and spectators who had come to j u d g e her. T h e Standard correspondent
was in awe: "If the m e n of the C o m m u n e had had in t h e m the spirit of this
fanatical woman, the troops would have had h a r d e r work than they had to
re-occupy Paris." 72
Louise Michel's tightly controlled, death-defying self-representation was
not the only portrait of h e r that would e m e r g e f r o m the trial. T h e gov-
e r n m e n t prosecutor and journalists presented other Louise Michels in an
effort to categorize her unnaturalness and to account for it. Because she
was a bourgeoise, it was even m o r e important to explain her behavior than
it was to explain that of the working-class petroleuses. She was an intelli-
gent, well-educated woman. She had pursued the only acceptable profes-
sion for an u n m a r r i e d woman—teaching. She dressed conservatively,

spoke well, and wrote poetry. And yet, she had f o u g h t like a man, defied
her accusers, and d e m a n d e d death. This was a troubling combination of
attributes, and it was essential that h e r "descent" into politics and revolu-
tion be explained. If she or h e r experiences were unique (or at least lim-
ited), she posed n o serious threat to contemporary gender conventions.
T h e wives and daughters of the bourgeoisie would n o t follow in h e r foot-
steps. If she was n o t unique (and therefore, abnormal), then the threat was
serious, and resistance to those who believed wom^n should participate in
the political sphere would have to be increased. T h e enigma of Louise
Michel lay at the heart of the bourgeois dilemma.
Male writers tried all the usual gambits to discredit her. T h e Gazette des
Tribunaux identified her as an amazon, at least by association. 7 3 T h e pros-
ecutor linked h e r to the tradition of witchcraft and the revolutionary tri-
coteuses by calling her a "devil-ridden fanatic," and a "she-wolf eager for
blood." 7 4 But these references to other unruly women satisfied n o one.
Louise Michel stood both figuratively and literally alone. She fit poorly into
historical categories, and many of the usual terms for unruly women were
absent f r o m the press accounts of h e r trial. No o n e called h e r a vivandiere,
harpy, virago, madwoman, or fury. She was not an ordinary u n n a t u r a l
woman, as the appellation Red Virgin would later verify.
T h e prosecutor and the press discussed Michel's appearance and fami-
ly origins to demonstrate that she was n o t truly bourgeois and n o t truly
feminine. She had been an illegitimate child, raised by charity; "her fea-
tures reveal [ed] an extreme severity"; she had "a hard physionomy, with
haggard eyes, a dry and m o r d a n t voice"; she was "indifferent as to h e r per-
sonal appearance" and lacked any feeling for coquetry;" she had "given u p
the dress of her sex" and had worn a National Guard u n i f o r m . 7 5 "Facts"
like these had b e e n used to good effect to j u d g e other female prisoners,
b u t like the traditional categories of unruly women, they were inadequate
to explain Louise Michel's behavior.
T h e personal accusations h a d some effect o n Michel herself, however.
While she embraced every accusation of revolutionary activity, whether ac-
curate or not, she chafed u n d e r false accusations about her personal life
and morality. She declared that she had n o t worn m e n ' s clothing, except
o n March 18 when she had worn a National Guard u n i f o r m so she would
n o t stand out. Otherwise, she had worn a red sash over her regular cloth-
ing. 7 6 In this regard, at least, Michel differed f r o m J e a n n e d'Arc, the great
h e r o i n e of France, who wore m e n ' s clothing (and with whom sympathetic
m e n identified her), and from other nineteenth-century female radicals. 7 7
She had n o desire to be mistaken for a man.
Michel also denied that she had ridden in a carriage, except when she
Women on Trial 1 gg
was recovering from a sprained ankle. T h e accusation i m p u g n e d her so-

cial and political principles, and she corrected it in court. 7 8 Later, she cor-
rected two other errors made by the prosecutor. She had b e e n reared by
her paternal grandparents, not on charity; and she was tall, n o t short. 7 9
She wanted the personal record to be accurate.
While the court, and later the press, spent time on these topics, the im-
portant undertaking for the prosecutor and journalists was to offer a com-
prehensive theory to explain Michel's behavior. T h e prosecutor saw h e r as
driven by pride, an u n f e m i n i n e attribute in a gender system that believed
women were naturally altruistic and self-effacing. Desiring "public atten-
tion," he said, she had left her benefactors in the countryside, and had
"run away to Paris for adventure." Once she was there, "an anonymous role
was r e p u g n a n t to her." She wanted "to draw public attention and to be in
the headlines of false proclamations and wall posters." She taught false
doctrines to her students, presided over the Club de la Revolution, rode in
a carriage "like a queen," 8 0 and supported such heinous acts as the exe-
cution of hostages—all in the search for fame. Natural women desired
anonymity, stayed at home, resisted adventure, and were humble. By this
logic, Louise Michel clearly was n o t a natural woman.
, T h e correspondent for Le Figaro had a different theory. Harking back to
^ Sarcey's "medical" analysis of the petroleuses, h e declared that Louise
Michel had been "prey to o n e of the crises of revolutionary hysteria." She
had held an honorable position as a teacher and was normally calm and
honest, b u t the contagion of hysteria had "plunged her into the disorders
and crimes of the C o m m u n e , " as it had other women. 8 1
T h e British correspondent for the Standard offered a "biology is destiny"
theory that included an attack on feminists. To begin with, he argued,
Louise Michel had been led astray, not by illicit sexual activity, as the five
petroleuses and many other women who were tried had been, but by sex-
ual inactivity. 82 All women, according to the Standard, were destined by na-
ture "to nurse and bring u p babies." They ignored this destiny at peril to
themselves and society. Louise Michel was a case in point. W h e n she should
have been getting married and having children of h e r own, she had been
"teaching urchin Democrats their pothooks and hangers." Not having mar-
ried and b o r n e children when she should have and having reached "that
peculiar time of life" (over thirty), she had become "sour and disappoint-
ed" and was "roused . . . to such a pitch of excitement" by the siege and rev-
olution that she "joined the insurrection body and soul." 8 3
To make matters worse, h e r "half-education" had "raised [her] above
her class without placing h e r in a class above" (another version of the bi-
ology-is-destiny theory: she had tried to become something she was not),
and she had "read herself into a kind of frenzy about the 'emancipation of
1 12
woman.'" These ideas, combined with h e r unfulfilled nature, p u t h e r "pre-

cisely in the f r a m e of mind which dupes, martyrs, and fanatics are gener-
ally m a d e of." 8 4
T h e n u m b e r and variety of these theories—pride, contagious hysteria,
biological destiny, half education, and "the rant and rubbish concerning
women's rights" 8 5 —demonstrate how difficult it was for the d o m i n a n t
bourgeois conceptualization of gender to account for nonconformity. No
o n e theory could explain all the c o m m u n a r d e s ' activities. If Louise Michel
had acted out of pride, the five petroleuses presumably had not. If lack
of sexual activity explained Michel's actidns, the obverse was suggested
for the petroleuses. If half education or exposure to women's rights ex-
plained the activities of Michel, Leo, Dmitrieff, and other bourgeois sup-
porters of the C o m m u n e , they did n o t explain those of working-class
women. Only contagious hysteria had the potential to apply to all the
women, and even so, Sarcey, who had first offered it to his reachers, did
n o t believe it applied to such women as Louise Michel, who had had ex-
h o r t e d other women to revolutionary acts. In the end, it would be easier
for the government to silence and punish the women by deporting and in-
carcerating t h e m than it would be for m e n to explain them.
Gaston Da Costa
T h e question of sexual activity, which played such a central role in the
trials of women, either by its presence or its absence, was missing f r o m vir-
tually all the m e n ' s trials, partly because the activities for which m e n were
being tried were more public—they had b e e n either government leaders
or m e m b e r s of the National Guard—and partly because the government
thought their activities had b e e n merely wrong, n o t abnormal. T h e ex-
ception to this rule came in the trial of Gaston Da Costa, who, unlike most
of the male defendants but like the women, was an enigma to the govern-
ment. In addition, Da Costa was accused of a crime for which the govern-
m e n t dearly wished to convict someone.
Da Costa was a twenty-one-year-old, well-educated disciple of Raoul
Rigault, o n e of the C o m m u n a r d s most hated by Versailles. Rigault, himself
only twenty-five, was an elected m e m b e r of the C o m m u n e and the delegate
to the Prefecture of Police. In that position h e had been able to arrest any-
o n e whom h e considered an enemy of the revolution, including bourgeois
citizens, priests, and f o r m e r police spies and gendarmes. A m o n g Rigault's
charges were the C o m m u n e ' s p r o m i n e n t hostages, for whose execution
Rigault regularly called during the C o m m u n e . During the semaine
Women on Trial 1 gg
sanglante, he personally authorized the killing of several prisoners and

arranged for the transfer of the hostages f r o m the jail at Mazas to o n e at
La Roquette, where many of them were subsequently executed. Rigault was
killed during the semaine sanglante, disappointing the conservatives, who
wanted to try and execute him. (They c o n d e m n e d him to death anyway o n
J u n e 29, 1871.) 8 6 O n the other hand, Da Costa, who had b e e n Rigault's
friend and assistant and who had overseen the transfer of the prisoners to
La Roquette, was alive and available for trial.
O n July 27 and 28, 1872, m o r e than a year after the defeat of the Com-
m u n e , Gaston Da Costa was b r o u g h t to trial on typical charges for the lead-
ers of the Commune—having tried to change the f o r m of the government
and complicity in illegal arrests and assassinations. 87 Wanting to punish
someone for the deaths of the hostages and annoyed perhaps by an edu-
cated) young man whom he believed had betrayed his class, Dulac, the pre-
siding officer, was openly hostile. H e i n f o r m e d Da Costa that his ideas were
n o t those of "a well-brought-up man." T h e n , instead of pursuing his polit-
ical ideas and activities, as o n e might have expected, given the charges
against him, the j u d g e t u r n e d to his personal life, questioning his morali-
ty and introducing an insinuation of homosexuality into the trial. 8 8
First, Dulac questioned how Da Costa could have lived with a grisette in
the Latin Quarter "as though h e were married." A grisettevi2LS a young work-
ing girl; the term, f r o m the gray color of their uniforms, implied ques-
tionable morals to the bourgeoisie. For a young bourgeois to have a grisette
as a mistress was o n e thing; to live with h e r as though they were married
was another. This, Dulac claimed h e could not understand. In actuality, as
the j u d g e undoubtedly knew, bourgeois m e n m o r e and m o r e often fre-
q u e n t e d glorified beer halls known as cafes-concerts or cafes-chantants, where
they mingled with the lower classes. But he also knew that it was fashion-
able to pretend to stand above such mingling. 8 9
T h e j u d g e then moved to a far more deadly accusation, hinting darkly
that Da Costa's relationship with Rigault had b e e n "shameful."
After 1867 you threw yourself into the Latin Quarter, and bound yourself to
an individual named Raoul Rigault, who became your intimate friend. . . .
Here is the information the police have given us about your affairs: Da Cos-
ta and Rigault were inseparable; Da Costa was completely faithful to Rigault.
When Rigault got out of bed, Da Costa got out of bed; when Rigault ate, Da
Costa ate; when Rigault went to bed, Da Costa went to bed. 90
Da Costa and his lawyer Gatineau were alarmed and d e m a n d e d a physical

examination, which eventually led to a medical declaration that Da Costa
was not a homosexual. It is impossible to know what kind of physical evi-

dence led to this conclusion since Da Costa is silent about the exact nature
of the physical examination to which he submitted. It is also impossible to
know anything other than what h e himself tells us about his sexuality. 91
T h e medical opinion, as well as Gatineau's reasoned defense and the ap-
pearance of respectable witnesses who testified to his kindnesses during
the C o m m u n e , would be to n o avail. T h e prosecutor, Captain Jolly, argued
in summation that h e would be the first to ask pity for m e n who served the
C o m m u n e because they were illiterate and knew n o better or were h u n g r y
and n e e d e d employment. But "for those like Da Costa, who were well ed-
ucated and enlightened" (i.e., bourgeois), he was for "inexorable severity,
because they h a d violated all of the laws of God and humanity." T h e court
f o u n d Da Costa guilty and sentenced him to death. His sentence was re-
duced to forced labor in New Caledonia by the appeals court seven months
later. 92
The Immoral and the Unnatural
Despite their very different social backgrounds, Da Costa's position at

his trial was remarkably similar to that of the five petroleuses. Neither his
nor their participation in the C o m m u n e was in question, but the specific
accusations against all of them were. T h e women acknowledged that they
had worked as cantinieres and ambulancieres, carrying food and drink to
the guardsmen, but denied having set fires. Da Costa acknowledged that
he had transferred the prisoners f r o m o n e prison to a n o t h e r during the
semaine sanglante, but he claimed that he had believed he was transfer-
ring them to ensure their safety. T h e same was true of his order to trans-
fer Gustave Chaudey from Mazas to Sainte-Pelagie, where Rigault o r d e r e d
his execution. Da Costa said h e had transferred Chaudey because his wife
had asked him to 9 3 He agreed that his research into the prefecture's
records had resulted in the arrest of at least o n e alleged police spy but con-
tended that the arrest itself had been carried out by Rigault. H a d the
j u d g e s taken the defense seriously, they might have f o u n d Da Costa, and
the petroleuses, guilty of participating in the C o m m u n e , but they might
not have sentenced any of them to death.
T h e fires and the executions of the hostages were the C o m m u n e ' s two
greatest crimes, however, and the j u d g e s wanted convictions and death sen-
tences in both cases. Earlier criminal records, sexual activity outside of
marriage, and the implication of homosexuality were introduced as signs
of depravity and hence as indicators of u n n a t u r a l inclinations. In the
Women on Trial 1 gg
women's cases, sexual affairs alone indicated immorality. In Da Costa's

case, more was necessary. The bourgeois double standard for sexual activ-
ity by m e n and women meant the accusation that h e had lived with a grisette
raised bourgeois eyebrows, but it was hardly proof of great immorality. T h e
serious charge was homosexuality. If Rigault and Da Costa had b e e n lovers,
then Da Costa's participation in "unnatural" sexual activity was proven and
his guilt on other counts could be assumed.
T h e accusation of homosexuality was unusual, if n o t unique, in the tri-
als of the Communards, and is a sign of how disturbing his crossing of the
class line between respectable and revolutionary activity was, at least for his
chief accuser, the presiding judge, Dulac. 9 4 For the most part, accusations
of immoral and at least vaguely unnatural sexual activity or inactivity were
used only in the women's cases, because only their participation in the
C o m m u n e was seen as unnatural.
Sexual activity or inactivity was an attractive explanation of women's par-
ticipation in violent revolution because it contained a prescription that
supported bourgeois values and the bourgeois organization of society and
the family. Woman was b o r n to be n u r t u r i n g and maternal, but h e r nature
was corruptible. She could fall into immorality and then violence if she
were seduced away from her natural roles at h o m e by the lure of sex or the
proponents of women's rights. To prevent this danger, free sex, celibacy,
and political rights should be discouraged for women. Domesticity was
both the goal and the solution to the problem of the unruly woman. O r at
least, so the bourgeois chose to believe.
C H A P T E R S E V E N
#
The Unruly Woman and

the Revolutionary City
I
n p r o s e a n d caricature, u n r u l y w o m e n p a r a d e t h r o u g h t h e pages of t h e
C o m m u n e . O n M a r c h 18 they c o n f r o n t t h e F r e n c h a r m y over t h e can-
n o n s o n M o n t m a r t r e , d a r i n g t h e m to fire o n their u n a r m e d bodies,
t h e n carve u p a d e a d horse, a n d t h e n e n c o u r a g e t h e killing of G e n e r a l s
L e c o m t e a n d C l e m e n t T h o m a s . F r o m April 3 to May 21 they m o u r n t h e
d e a d of Paris, p o u n d t h e pulpits in c h u r c h e s , care f o r w o u n d e d soldiers,
a n d p r e p a r e to fight t h e Versailles troops. F r o m May 22 to May 28 they de-
f e n d t h e barricades, b u r n t h e city, a n d a b u s e t h e C o m m u n a r d prisoners.
In their various guises, f r o m p e t r o l e u s e to sainted m o t h e r , c o m m u n a r d e
to b o u r g e o i s e , these f e m a l e figures play central roles in creating a n d com-
m u n i c a t i n g t h e significance of this t u m u l t u o u s revolution. T h e y r e a c h o u t
f r o m t h e past to control o u r u n d e r s t a n d i n g of it a n d to g u i d e us to j u d g -
ment.
W o m a n as S y m b o l
In t h e last week of May 1871 t h e C o m m u n e lost m o r e t h a n military bat-

tles; it also lost t h e war of r e p r e s e n t a t i o n . Its e n e m i e s would successfully
p o r t r a y its a d h e r e n t s as t h e i m m o r a l killers of t h e a r c h b i s h o p , a n d t h e de-
stroyers of Paris by fire. N o Delacroix would e m e r g e to r e p r e s e n t t h e no-
bility of its struggle. Even those w h o tried to r e p r e s e n t t h e C o m m u n e pos-
itively p r e s e n t e d r a t h e r silly a n d saccarine c o m m u n a r d e s , worse t h a n pale
imitations of Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People (see fig. 2). A drawing
218
I
Unruly Woman and Revolutionary City 219
dedicated to the National Guard reveals how static was m u c h pro-Com-

, m u n e art. While Delacroix's masterpiece is clearly the model for Souvenir
° f 1 8 7 1 (fig. 21), the contrasts are greater than the similarities. In the alle-
gory, a c o m m u n a r d e takes the place of Liberty. Dressed demurely in a
bodice with a high neckline and short sleeves, h e r breasts covered with a
double layer of material, and her skirt covering even h e r feet, she has n o n e
of the power or movement of Delacroix's barefoot Liberty in a slipped chi-
ton. With both feet planted o n the ground, the c o m m u n a r d e seems to pre-
side over rather than to lead the guardsmen who struggle with the enemy.
A r m e d with a sword instead of a rifle, she seems ill e q u i p p e d to lead this
battle, although o n e of the guardsmen is similarly ill armed. Indeed, the
guardsmen appear to be fighting for the c o m m u n a r d e / C o m m u n e (liter-
ally a r o u n d her) rather than being led by her, as was the case in the final
battles between the National Guard and the Versaillais.
Artists who represented the C o m m u n e powerfully dwelled on two sub-
jects. Like Edouard Manet, they represented the horrors of the semaine
sanglante in the figures of the d e a d (fig. 22), or like the caricaturists, they
represented the horrors of the C o m m u n e in the figure of the petroleuse,
the symbolic inversion of Delacroix's Liberty. In h e r most powerful incar-
nations, the petroleuse might carry a flag, but she led n o troops. She might
stride powerfully forward, but she strode alone (fig. 23). No o n e else was
within the picture's frame. In place of a flintlock, she carried a b u r n i n g
firebrand. Revenge and destruction, n o t victory and the creation of a new
state, were her goals (see fig. 12).
Although the petroleuse became the most famous representation of the
C o m m u n e , she was n o t the only female figure used in this regard. A whole
panoply of female representations appeared in texts and drawings. As a li-
oness protecting h e r cubs, the c o m m u n a r d e personified the glory of the
revolutionary struggle; as grieving m o t h e r and widow, the sins of Versailles.
As female orator, she represented the unnaturalness and folly of the Com-
m u n e ' s cause; as naive cantiniere, its stupidity; as petroleuse, its evil. H e r
symbolic content was maleable and various.
T h e symbolic content of the c o m m u n a r d e ' s male counterpart was more
limited. T h e c o m m u n a r d was portrayed either sympathetically or villain-
ously, d e p e n d i n g on the politics of the writer or artist who presented him
to view, but h e did n o t personify the C o m m u n e . W h e t h e r noble or igno-
ble, he always represented politically and socially radical working-class
men. T h e greater variability and symbolic usefulness of female figures like
the c o m m u n a r d e and the petroleuse were the p r o d u c t of two cultural phe-
n o m e n a : a long-standing Western iconographic tradition that made most
allegorical figures female, and dichotomous cultural conceptualizations
Souvenir de 1871
DEBIE A LA GARDE-NATIONALE
FIGURE 21. Souvenir of I8JI: "Dedicated to the National Guard." Bibliotheque

Nationale.
F I G U R E 2 2 . Edouard Manet, Civil War (1871). Rosenwald Collection, © 1995 Board

of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
of female n a t u r e which m a d e it possible for t h e m to represent both good

and evil, the natural and the unnatural. Rebellious m e n might be wrong
and bad, but they were not unnatural; rebellious women were all three, and
therefore, their symbolic usefulness was far greater.
O n e set of female representations reflected perceptions of woman's na-
ture as dichotomous and, to a certain extent, were variations on the
Mary/Eve and Mary/Mary Magdalene oppositions. Grieving mothers, wid-
ows, and o r p h a n e d girls embodied what were perceived as the natural and
saintly virtues of women. Sexually innocent and politically passive, they
were coded positively and in their essence c o n d e m n e d anyone' who
h a r m e d them or, by extension, the government they represented. Ama-
zons, hecates, furies, and viragoes, on the contrary, personified what was
perceived as women's frightening, u n n a t u r a l (although the extent to
which their actions were natural or u n n a t u r a l was always in question, giv-
en the perception of woman's nature as dichotomous), and by implication,
evil side. Sexually and politically active, these figures were usually coded
1MP T A L O T S .
UNT PETROLEUSE.
FIGURE 23. Paul Klenck, UnePetroleuse. Bibliotheque Nationale.

negatively in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and they and
the government they represented posed serious threats to civil order and
to society generally.
A second set of female representations was built on a culturally con-
structed opposition between the feminine and the masculine which iden-
tified n a t u r e with woman and civilization with man. Presented as lionness-
es, creatures, and to a certain extent, amazons, these images linked women
to the wild (nature) and separated them from the civilized (male) world.
A third image, the tricoteuse, d e p e n d e d on myth and m e m o r y of the Ter-
ror of 1793 and 1794 for its power. Its unnatural, evil, and bloodthirsty rep-
resentation of women colored male reaction to the C o m m u n e and the
c o m m u n a r d e s t h r o u g h o u t the C o m m u n e .
T h e tricoteuse and the other representations of women that emerged
during the C o m m u n e were overshadowed in May by the petroleuse. To a
considerable extent, in fact, the c o m m u n a r d e became the petroleuse. Part
of this identification is explained simply by the fires and bloodshed of the
semaine sanglante. The petroleuse simultaneously focused attention on
the crimes of the C o m m u n e and distracted attention from those of the Ver-
sailles government and the army. But belief in the actual existence of the
petroleuse grew too rapidly and was too long lasting for her acceptance
into the p a n t h e o n of female representations to be "explained simply by
bourgeois propaganda. This particular personification of the unruly
woman represented nineteenth-century m e n ' s worst fears about women.
The petroleuse had threatened to overturn the entire social order. She
had n o t only challenged male authority by leaving her h o m e and acting in
the public sphere; she had also attacked property, the source of the bour-
geois male's wealth and the physical manifestation of his importance; she
had b u r n e d down the h o m e in which she was supposed to take care of her
children; and she had c o r r u p t e d her children by encouraging them to aid
her in this deed. She was the evil mother, capable of killing h e r children,
controlling men, and destroying the source of their wealth and power. She
embodied the message that m e n could expect anarchy and destruction if
women escaped the h o m e and the bonds of civilization and were allowed
to give rein to their very worst instincts. Freed women, they revealed, would
forget their femininity, devour their (male) children, and destroy civiliza-
tion.
In this sense, the c o m m u n a r d e as petroleuse returns us to the Goncourt
brothers' reaction to their maid Rose's behavior, with which we began. For
the Goncourts, Rose's secret life revealed "the duplicity of woman's nature,
the powerful faculty, the science, the consummate genius, for lying that in-
forms all of a woman's being." 1 T h e same was true of the communardes.
They, or at least the worst a m o n g them in male imagination (the prosti-

tutes of March 18 who cheered on the troops to kill the generals and the
incendiaries who b u r n e d Paris in the semaine sanglante and who the gov-
e r n m e n t believed were also prostitutes), revealed the dichotomous or du-
plicitous nature of women. T h e virginal m o t h e r (Mary) who n u r t u r e d m e n
could turn into the unfaithful Eve who would deceive and steal from them.
Burning property was only an extreme f o r m of theft.
T h e communarde-petroleuse represented more than the untrustwor-
thiness of generic woman, however. She also represented feminists. It is n o
accident that the caption for figure 17 identifies the petroleuse as "the
emancipated woman shedding light o n the world," and that the "Grrrrand
Female Orator" (see fig. 14) holds a paper on which we can read the words
"Loi sur le divorce" (Divorce law). Feminists, who were called emancipat-
ed women in the nineteenth century, were women who had left the do-
mestic sphere for the political arena. A small, but increasingly well-orga-
nized movement in the later years of the Second Empire, feminism, indeed
the very existence of feminists, challenged bourgeois m e n ' s sense of order,
power, and well-being. 2 Conservatives feared for the family, a m o n g other
things, and this fear was represented twice over by linking the female ora-
tor (feminist) with a d e m a n d for the legalization of divorce. For political
and social conservatives, the conflation of the image of the feminist with
that of the petroleuse is hardly surprising. T h e figure represented the un-
ruly woman who challenged male authority and who, if she were not re-
strained, would destroy (male) civilization.
T h e petroleuse worked symbolically not just because she e m b o d i e d
m e n ' s fears b u t because women were just as m u c h outsiders in 1871 as they
had b e e n eighty years earlier, during the French Revolution. Just as Mari-
a n n e could represent the republic in which she had n o political identity,
the petroleuse could represent the C o m m u n e that excluded individual
women f r o m its ruling bodies and even, for the most part, f r o m the ranks
of its defenders. She functions n o t as an individual b u t as a m e t a p h o r for
what she is not—a citizen of the C o m m u n e . In this regard, other female
images (like Delacroix's Liberty) could have represented the C o m m u n e
and might have, had the revolution b e e n successful.
After the defeat of the C o m m u n e , and its demonization in the press, pos-
itive and even ambiguous female representations could n o t be used. Note-
worthy in this regard is the figure of the amazon warrior who strides so fre-
quently across the landscape of the C o m m u n e . Whereas the amazon was
hardly a positive image for conservatives, her major characteristics—vir-
ginity, independence, wildness, and power—were intertwined with those
of the h e r o i n e J e a n n e d'Arc for nineteenth-century F r e n c h m e n , making
her far too ambiguous an image to be used to represent the C o m m u n e neg-

atively (see fig. 7). 3
T h e petroleuse inverted the amazon's characteristics. She was m o r e of-
ten depicted as a hag than as a young virgin and was identified with insan-
ity rather than pure wildness. Iconographically, she was always fully
clothed, never revealing the bare breast that symbolized heroism, devo-
tion, and sacrifice (see frontispiece and figs. 12, 17, 18, 19, and 23X 4 T h e
petroleuse was not desexed, however. (Indeed, o n e reason the positive car-
icatures of c o m m u n a r d e s on the barricades were so insipid was because
they did desexualize women, presenting them as naive and childlike.)
T h e petroleuse was a compelling figure n o t because she had acted like
a m a n but precisely because she was a woman. H e r appeal was her threat,
and vice versa. She might be able to lure m e n to their destruction and to
the destruction of their civilization in a way that a man never could. She
had the power to seduce, as the m e n who were mesmerized by the beauti-
ful and the hideous (both culturally defined) women a m o n g the prisoners
reveal. And so, she had to be tamed, t u r n e d into the hideous, nonalluring
petroleuse of the anti-Commune cartoonists and the conservative editori-
al writers. T h e terrible dilemma was that, like the Goncourts' "ugly and un-
gainly" Rose, this hideous woman could attract men. She could lure them
into the "nocturnal orgies," of which o n e of Rose's lovers declared, "It's go-
ing to kill o n e of us—her or me." 5 Men feared it would n o t be the woman
who would die.
For men, revolution was the unruly woman. It threatened to turn on its
head the social order that was supposed to make women subservient to
m e n and workers subservient to the bourgeoisie, an o r d e r that was sup-
posed to be natural but which, it was frightening to imagine, might n o t be,
if it could be overturned. In the political arena, working-class revolution
was the ultimate threat; in the personal arena, women's sexuality was. And
so, in discourses and iconography that were controlled by men, the image
that e m e r g e d to represent the political threat of revolution in 1871 was the
petroleuse. 6 O n e fear triggered and represented the other.
T h e C o n s e q u e n c e s of R e p r e s e n t a t i o n
T h e lionesses, amazon warriors, mothers, hecates, tricoteuses, furies,

and petroleuses that inhabit the pages of the C o m m u n e both simplify and
complicate our ability to see this decisive m o m e n t in history. T h r o u g h
them, writers have m a d e and have wished us to make moral j u d g m e n t s
about the C o m m u n e . As they move us t o j u d g m e n t , the female images con-
1 12
ceal the complexities of the C o m m u n e , leaving us with a dichotomous

good-and-evil picture of it. As a result, the C o m m u n e texts give us a clear-
er picture of their writers' ideologies than they d o of their ostensible sub-
ject matter. We are meant to praise or c o n d e m n the C o m m u n e , n o t to see
its complexities.
O u r making these j u d g m e n t s "properly" d e p e n d s u p o n our under-
standing the figures' symbolic content. Since we continue to share many
of the cultural values and gender conceptualizations f r o m which they de-
rive their meaning, this is n o t as difficult today as it might b e c o m e some
time in the future. Two cautions are in order, however. First, it would be
unwise to assume that these symbols have retained exactly the same con-
tent across time. Indeed, viewing these images outside their historical con-
text could lead to complete confusion. If, for instance, we were to inter-
pret the amazon as a positive rather than as a negative symbol, as late
twentieth-century feminists are wont to do, we would reverse the message
that she is meant to carry in conservative texts.
Second, women "see" female allegorical figures differently f r o m the way
m e n "see" them. Women participate in the representations in ways that
m e n do not. For women, sameness rather than alterity is at issue, and the
cautionary as well as the celebratory messages can be, and frequently are,
personalized. 7 It is n o t clear, therefore, that all women have seen the de-
pictions of the amazon warriors, furies, and petroleuses in such negative
terms as their male creators and viewers. Nor have they all regarded indi-
vidual women like "the fire-eating Louise Michel" 8 as such villains.
In addition to carrying writers' and artists'judgments of the C o m m u n e ,
female images reveal their creators' attitudes toward women and gender.
O n the o n e hand, we have negative images of amazons, furies, viragoes,
harpies, and petroleuses, who exist outside the h u m a n community. O n the
other hand, we have positive, b u t essentialized, female images of widows,
mothers, and female victims, who exist within the h u m a n community but
are marginalized by their passivity. These binarily opposed images—
g o o d / b a d , passive/active, d e p e n d e n t / i n d e p e n d e n t , sexually passive/sex-
ually aggressive—structure our understanding of the women of the Com-
m u n e , just as they d o o u r understanding of the C o m m u n e itself. They
move us to j u d g m e n t of the C o m m u n e ' s women rather than to an under-
standing of the complexities of their lives, personalities, and actions.
Women's lives, as well as their self-presentations, were constrained by the
gender conventions that p r o d u c e d these representations. Even so, their
representations of themselves and their ideas are m o r e complex and less
dichotomous than those that inhabit the pages written by most m e n , as re-
vealed in the letters and memoirs of the hardworking Celine de Mazade,
who could playfully declare herself a f e m m e forte when she decided to stay
in Paris, or of the dedicated revolutionary Louise Michel, who when not
fighting with the National Guard was teaching young children and rescu-
ing old cats.
T h e equation of the unruly woman with the revolution in the figure of
the petroleuse did more than obscure women, however. It actively h a r m e d
the c o m m u n a r d e s who were arrested. In order for the conservative bour-
geoisie to establish its hegemony over Paris, it had to establish it over
women. In essence, the bourgeoisie u n d e r t o o k to demonstrate its mastery
of the revolution by mastering its representation, that is, by punishing and
repressing women.
The identification of revolution with the unruly woman was n o t peculiar
to nineteenth-century France. It lies b e h i n d the repression of women that
has occurred in other times and places when governments have changed
hands, regardless of whether women have participated in or m a d e de-
mands u p o n the revolution or the government. 9 Repression of the com-
m u n a r d e s was particularly inevitable, however, since women actually had
participated in the revolt and had d e f e n d e d the city at the barricades.
Whether they had b u r n e d the city or n o t (and the evidence is that they had
not), they were fully implicated by their other "unladylike," "feminist," or
"unnatural" activities, and they would be severely punished for them.
In an ironic reversal, the marginalized women of the nineteenth centu-
ry gave birth to female figures that d o m i n a t e d the texts and h e n c e the his-
tory of this period. While these figures conceal the complexities of the
C o m m u n e and its struggle with Versailles, and reduce the women of the
C o m m u n e largely to stereotypes and caricatures, they tell us a great deal
about the conceptualizations and fears of their creators. If we focus u p o n
them, three things become clear, or at least clearer. First, the women and
m e n of 1871 lived their lives and developed their perceptions of them-
selves and each other in a conceptually and politically g e n d e r e d universe.
Second, our understanding a n d j u d g m e n t of the C o m m u n e is mediated by
female figures who convey and create moral j u d g m e n t s in their very
essence. If readers share the general (if not the precise) gender concep-
tualizations and j u d g m e n t s of the eyewitness and historical accounts of the
C o m m u n e and remain unconscious of the roles these figures play in the
texts they read, the political agenda of the authors is easily conveyed to
them. Third, in 1871 m e n ' s fear of the unruly woman led them to see so-
cial threats as sexual threats and vice versa. 1 0
Whereas fear of the unruly woman cut across class lines, the fears of the
bourgeoisie were more important than those of the proletariat and its al-
lies, for the victors would control the symbolic representation of the Com-
1 12
m u n e . In texts and pictures, the equation of social threats with sexual

threats resulted in the foregrounding of the petroleuse as unruly woman
and as allegory for over a century. T h e Goncourts and other bourgeois
m e n should have b e e n worrying n o t about the duplicity of women they
knew b u t about the power of the readily accessible female figures, which
they mistakenly believed they controlled. Their stunning contribution to
the p a n t h e o n of such women, the petroleuse, was able to dominate their
texts and h e n c e the past. T h e female representations were as unruly as the
women and the revolution they represented.
Notes
Introduction
1. Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt, Journal: Memoires de la vie littmire,
ed. and annotated by Robert Ricatte (Paris: Fasquelle and Flammarion, 1956), August
21, 1862, 1:1119—121. The Goncourts' novel Germinie Eacerteux is based on their dis-
covery of Rose's deception.
2. See, for instance, Claire Goldberg Moses, French Feminism in the Nineteenth Centu-
ry (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984), pp. 151-72; Susan Groag Bell and
Karen Offen, eds., Women, the Family, and Freedom: The Debate in Documents, vol. 1,
1750-1880 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1983).
3. Stewart Edwards, The Paris Commune, 1871 (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1971),
p. xiii.
4. Frank Jellinek, The Paris Commune of 1871 (1937; rpt. New York: Grosset and
Dunlap, 1965), pp. 325, 329, 365, 366, 368.
5. Paul MacKendrick, Deno Geanakoplos, J. H. Hexter, and Richard Pipes, Western
Civilization: The Struggle for Empire to Europe in the Modern World (New York: Harper and
Row, 1968), p. 521. The chronology of events in the semaine sanglante is not in doubt.
6. The Impressionists developed the style for which they are known in the Com-
mune's aftermath. Moderate republicans, they reclaimed the city for the bourgeoisie by
erasing the physical destruction of the city in their paintings. This symbolic erasure and
reclamation was a deeply political enterprise. The second generation, children when
the revolt occurred, reacted differently. In their controlled and orderly paintings, they
sought to create a new, tolerant, noncompetitive, egalitarian world, not to reclaim pow-
er and control for the bourgeoisie. See Albert Boime, Art and the French Commune: Imag-
ining Paris after War and Revolution (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995).
7. P.-O. Lissagaray, Histoiredela Commune de 1871 (1896; rpt. Paris: Maspero, 1983),
pp. 368, 353.
8. Sebastien Commissaire, Memoires et souvenirs (Paris: Garcet et Nisius, 1888),
2:373; Felix Pyat, Vengeur, May 24, 1871, p. 2; Benoit Malon, La troisieme defaite du prole-
tairefranfais (Neuchätel: G. Guillaume fils, 1871), p. 504.
229
230 Notes to Pages30—36
g. Francisque Sarcey, "Les alienistes," Gaulois, May 28, 1871, p. 1.

10. Maxime Du Camp, Les convulsions de Paris (Paris: Librairie Hachette, 1881), 2:60,
62, 1:314-
11. Captain Beugnot, quoted in Edmond Lepelleder, Histoire de la Commune de 1871
(Paris: Mercure de France, 1911), 1:448.
12. Lepelletier, Histoire de la Commune 1:45c).
13. Jules Claretie, Histoire de la revolution de 1870-71 (Paris: Bureaux du Journal L'E-
clipse, 1872), p. 651.
14. Alexandre Dumas, Fils, Une lettre sur les choses du jour (Paris: Michel Levy Freres,
1871), pp. 16-17.
15. Gaston Da Costa, La Commune vecue (Paris: Ancienne Maison Quantin, 1903-5),
1:20-22.
16. Jules Bergeret, Le 18 mars: Journal hebdomadaire (London: n.p., August 21-Sep-
tember 6 [1871]), p. 25.
17. Denise Riley, "Am I That Name?" Feminism and the Category of "Women" in History
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1988).
18. There is a large and growing literature on the lives of nineteenth-century bour-
geois women. Among the most important are Bonnie G. Smith, Ladies of the Leisure Class:
The Bourgeoises of Northern France in the Nineteenth Century (Princeton: Princeton Univer-
sity Press, 1981); Mary S. Hartman, Victorian Murderesses: A True History of Thirteen R
spectable French and English Women Accused of Unspeakable Crimes (New York: Schocken,
1977); Erna Hellerstein, Leslie Hume, and Karen Offen, Victorian Women: A Documentary
Account of Women's Lives in Nineteenth-Century England, France, and the United Stales (Stan-
ford: Stanford University Press, 1981); Riley, "Am I That Name?"; Mary Poovey, Uneven
Developments: The Ideological Work of Gender in Mid-Victorian England (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1988); Martha Vicinus, ed., Suffer and Be Still: Women in the Victorian
Age (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1973); Leonore Davidoff and Catherine
Hall, Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class, 1780-1850 (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1987); Barbara Welter, "The Cult of True Womanhood,
1820-1860," American Quarterly 18 (Summer ig66):i5i-74; Carroll Smith-Rosenberg,
"The Female World of Love and Ritual: Relations between Women in Nineteenth-Cen-
tury America," Signs 1 (Autumn ig75):i-29; Kathryn Kish Sklar, Catherine Beecher: A
Study in American Domesticity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973); Linda K. Kerber,
"Separate Spheres, Female Worlds, Woman's Place: The Rhetoric of Women's History,"
Journal of American History 75 (July ig88):9-3g.
ig. Bell and Offen, eds., Women, theFamily, and Freedom, 1:42-179; Moses, French Fem-
inism, pp. 17-20, 3 i-3g; Smith, Ladies of the Leisure Class, pp. 34-49; Cynthia Eagle Rus-
sett, The Victorian Construction of Womanhood (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
198g), pp. 1-154.
20. Marina Warner, Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and the Cult of the Virgin Mary (New
York: Random House, 1983); Warner, Monuments and Maidens: The Allegory of the Femal
Form (New York: Atheneum, 1985), pp. 63-87; Margaret R. Miles, Carnal Knowing: Fe-
male Nakedness and Religious Meaning in the Christian West (Boston: Beacon, 1 g8g); Elaine
Pagels, Adam, Eve, and the Serpent (New York: Random House, 1988).
21. Warner, Monuments and Maidens, pp. xxi, 63-87; Madelyn Gutwirth, The Twilight
of the Goddesses: Women and Representation in the French Revolutionary Era (New Brunswick,
N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1992), pp. 257-58; Sarah B. Pomeroy, Goddesses, Whores,
Wives, andSlaves: Women in Classical Antiquity (New York: Schocken, 1975), pp. 4-g; Lynn
Hunt, "Hercules and the Radical Image in the French Revolution," Representations 1
(i9 8 3):95-n7-
22. The cultural tradition of female personification is so strong that even when the
Notes 231
grammatical gender of a concept is not female, its representation sometimes is. Warn-
( er, Monuments and Maidens, p. 68.
23. Gutwirth, Twilight of the Goddesses, pp. 255-59; Warner, Monuments and Maidens,
pp. xx, 39.
24. Gutwirth, Twilight of the Goddesses, pp. 255-59; Warner, Monuments and Maidens,
p. 37; Teresa De Lauretis, Alice Doesn't: Feminism, Semiotics, Cinema (Bloomington: Indi-
ana University Press, 1984).
25. Warner, Monuments and Maidens, p. 37.
26. Maurice Agulhon, Marianne into Battle: Republican Imagery and Symbolism in
France, 1789-1880, trans. Janet Lloyd (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981),
pp. 11-34, 129; Warner, Monuments and Maidens, pp. 277, 292.
27. Anne Hollander, Seeing through Clothes (New York: Viking, 1978), pp. 202,
186-202; Warner, Monuments and Maidens, pp. 267-68, 270-78, 289, 292.
28. Several bibliographies on the Commune are available in print, in addition to the
extensive bibliographies in many histories, such as Edwards, The Pans Commune. For a
breakdown of the political alignments of twentieth-century historians, see Jellinek, The
Paris Commune, pp. 423-29, 433-35; and Jean Bruhat, Jean Dautry, and Emile Tersen,
La Commune de 1871 (Paris: Sociales, i960), pp. 391-420. For an example of misogynist
history, see Richard Cobb's review of the English edition of Edith Thomas's book, "The
Women of the Commune," in his Second Identity: Essays ofFrance and French History (Lon-
don: Oxford University Press, 1969), pp. 221-36.
29. Bruhat, Dautry, and Teresen, La Commune de 1871, pp. 179-94; William Serman,
La Commune de Paris (1871) (Paris: Fayard, 1986), pp. 287-92; Georges Soria, Grande
histoire de la Commune, 5 vols. (Paris: Livre Club Diderot, 1970), 3:124-42; Stephane
Rials, Nouvelle Histoire de Paris: De Trochu ä Thiers, 1870-187j (Paris: Hachette, 1985),
PP- 432-35- I n a later section, Rials addresses the question of whether the fires of the
semaine sanglante were set by women (pp. 495-509).
30. Edith Thomas, Les "petroleuses" (Paris: Gallimard, 1963). Articles that focus on
women include Eugene Schulkind, "Le role des femmes dans la Commune de 1871,"
1848: Revue des revolutions contemporaines 42 (February 1950): n.p.; Schulkind, "Social-
ist Women during the 1871 Paris Commune," Past and Present, no. 106 (February
1985): 124-63; Vasili Soukhomline, "Deux femmes russes combattantes de la Com-
mune," Cahiers International 16 (May i95o):53-Ö2; Helene Parmelin, "Les femmes et
la Commune," Europe 29 (April-May 1951): 136-46; Marie-Louise Coudert, "II y a cent
ans les femmes aussi...," Cahiers du Communisme, special issue "La Commune" (March
1971): 110-15; P e r s i s Hunt, "Feminism and Anti-Clericalism under the Commune," in
John Hicks and Robert Tucker, eds., Revolution and Reaction: The Paris Commune, 1871
(Springfield; University of Massachusetts Press, 1973), pp. 50-55; Kathleen B.Jones and
FranCoise Verges, "Women of the Paris Commune," Woman's Studies International Forum
14 (i99i).-49i-5o3.
31. Studies of the Holocaust have also employed this technique, and as James Young
points out, such understandings of the relationship between what was (the facts) and
the telling of what was (texts) has a long history. James E. Young, Writing and Rewriting
the Holocaust: Narrative and the Consequences of Interpretation (Bloomington - Indiana Uni-
0
versity Press, 1988), pp. 1-5.
Synopsis
1. For detailed information about the Commune's origins and history see Lis-
sagaray, Hlstotre de la Commune, which is also available in English t r a n s l a t i o n : " ^ " /
232 Notes to Pages 3 0—3 6
the Commune of 1871, trans. Eleanor Marx Aveling (New York: International, 1898);
Jellinek, The Paris Commune; Edwards, TheParis Commune; Robert Tombs, The War against
Paris, 1871 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981); Serman, La Commune; or
one of the many other histories of this period. In addition to these sources, details in
the following account have been taken from Nathan Sheppard, Shut Up in Paris (Lon-
don: Richard Bentley, 1871), p. 9; the Reverend William Gibson, Paris during the Com-
mune: Being Letters from Paris and Its Neighbourhood Written Chiefly during the Time of the Sec-
ond Siege (London: Whittaker, 1872); Goncourt, Journal, vol. 2; Cri duPeupte; Daily News;
and Times.
2. For analysis of this and other military decisions during this period, see Tombs,
War against Paris.
3. For information on the creation and evolution of Marianne, see Agulhon, Mar-
ianne into Battle.
4. For a history of the Communes established briefly in Marseilles and Lyons in
1871, see Louis M. Greenberg, Sisters of Liberty (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1971); Jeanne Gaillard, Communes de Province, Commune de Paris, 1870—I8JI (Paris:
Flammarion, 1971); and Julian P. W. Archer, 'The Crowd in the Lyon Commune and
the Insurrection of La Guillotiere," in i8ji:Jalonspourune histoire de la Commune de Paris,
ed. Jacques Rougerie (Assen, Pays-Bas: Van Gorcum, 1973), pp. 183-90.
5. Gibson, Paris during the Commune, pp. 130, 143.
6. Jules Valles, Cri du Peuple, March 30, 1871, p. 1.
7. Albert Boime, Hollow Icons: The Politics of Sculpture in Nineteenth-Century France
(Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1987), pp. 8-9.
8. Goncourt, Journal, March 19, 1871, 2:747. Of the two Goncourt brothers, only
Edmond wrote about the Commune; Jules had died on June 20, 1870.
9. "The frightful spectacle [of dead and captured Communards] will serve as a les-
son, it is to be hoped, to the foolish people who dared to declare themselves partisans
of the Commune." Official Government (Versailles) Dispatch, May 25, 7:00 A.M., quot-
ed in Gibson, Paris during the Commune, p. 267.
10. M. le General Appert, Rapport d'ensemble sur les operations de la justice militaire rela-
tives ä l'insurrection de 1871 (Paris: Assemblee Nationale, 1875), pp. 320-21.
11. V. I. Lenin, TheParis Commune (New York: International, 1934); Karl Marx and
V. I. Lenin, The Civil War in France: TheParis Commune (New York: International, 1940).
12. The Communards, and especially the National Guard of Paris, were also referred
to as the fedbres, or the federals, since they espoused a federal form of government that
would give more autonomy to individual departments than the centralized government
of France did.
1. The Women of March 18

1. A correspondent for the London Daily News witnessed the National Guard's
seizure of the guns on February 27. While he and others stood on the street and watched
anxiously, "National Guards, in various uniforms, and a confused mob of civilians, in-
cluding many of the gamins and the voyous, for which Paris is famous, came running
along, dragging and pushing about thirty large pieces of artillery. . . . At last a person
standing near me" he reported, "caught hold of a National Guard and questioned him—
retaining him by force. 'You shall tell us what you are doing with these cannon,' he ex-
claimed; and the National Guard, panting for breath, hastily replied, 'Those cannons
are our cannons; we paid for them with the money collected among ourselves; they be-
long to us and not to the Government; and therefore we have a right to refuse to allow
Notes 233
t h e m to be delivered u p to the Prussians.' T h e word Prussian gave new strength to the

m a n — h e broke loose f r o m the h a n d s which imprisoned him a n d rejoined his c a n n o n . "
Daily News, March 1, 1871, p. 6.
2. La verite sur la Commune par un ancien proscrit (Paris: Louis Salmon, n.d.),
pp. 222-23; Lissagaray, Histoire de la Commune, pp. 108-10; Da Costa, La Commune vecue
1:12; Lepelletier, Histoire de la Commune 1 : 3 g 6 - 9 8 ; H e n r i Lefebvre, La proclamation de la
Commune, 26 mars 1871 (Paris: Gallimard, 1965), p. 241; Tombs, War against Paris p p
43-44-
3. Georges E. B. Clemenceau, Clemenceau: The Events of His Life as Told by Himself to
His Former Secretary, Jean Martet, trans. Milton Waldman (London: Longmans, Green
193°). pp. 165-66. Clemenceau's account of March 18 was written in 1872 b u t n o t pub-
lished until 1930. Edgar Holt, The Tiger: The Life of Georges Clemenceau, 1841-1929 (Lon-
don: Hamish Hamilton, 1976), p. 29.
4. Clemenceau, Clemenceau, p. 165, 170, 173, 182, 186; Assemblee Nationale, Erb
quete parlementaire sur Vinsurrection du 18 mars, vol. 2: Depositions des temoins (Versailles:
Cerf, 1872), Jules Ferry, p. 64. General reports o n these efforts and the difficulties in-
volved in t h e m can also be f o u n d in the Times, March 15 (p. 5), 16 (pp. 5, 10), and 17
(p. 5), 1871. Also see Tombs, War against Paris, pp. 34-35.
5. Clemenceau, Clemenceau, p. 166.
6. Readers should n o t confuse this street with the m o r e f a m o u s r u e des Rosiers in
the f o u r t h arrondissement.
7. Louise Michel, La Commune, 2d ed. (Paris: P.-V. Stock, 1898), pp. 139-40.
Michel's and Clemenceau's accounts of their meeting and actions on the eighteenth
concur.
8. La verite sur la Commune, p. 229. This work was published anonymously and is un-
dated, b u t Stewart Edwards identifies the a u t h o r of it as Vergers d'Esboeufs and dates
its publication as 1879-80. See Edwards, ed., The Communards of Paris, trans. J e a n Mc-
Neil (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1973), pp. 56, 65, 175. Esboeufs was a m e m b e r
of the Revolutionary Committee in the seventeenth arrondissement.
9. Lepelletier, Histoire de la Commune, p. 400; La vmte sur la Commune, p. 2 29.
10. Clemenceau, Clemenceau, p. 168. C l e m e n c e a u felt insulted by the implicit accu-
sation that h e wanted to "parade the corpse." In his j u d g m e n t , the crowd was calm and
there was n o danger. T u r p i n died a few days later. La vmte sur la Commune suggests that
General Lecomte's callous disregard for the w o u n d e d T u r p i n was o n e of the reasons h e
was killed later in the day.
n . Clemenceau, Clemenceau, p. 16g.
12. La verite sur la Commune, p. 232.
13. Ibid.
14. Da Costa, La Commune vecue 1:15; Daily News, March 18, 1871 (dateline: Paris,
March 17, evening), p. 6.
16. Times, March 20, 1871 (dateline: March 18), p. 9.
17. For i n f o r m a t i o n on the events in Belleville, a n o t h e r working-class suburb of
Paris, on March 18 and d u r i n g the C o m m u n e , see Gerard J a c q u e m e C Belleville au XIXe
siecle du faubourg ä la ville (Paris: Editions d e l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences So-
ciales, 1984), pp. 178-83.
18. Tombs, War against Paris, p. 44. This was apparently a separate incident f r o m the
o n e I have already described.
19. Most historians and many participants in the events of March 18 believed that
Lecomte did o r d e r his m e n to fire on the crowd. See La verite sur la Commune,
PP- 2 3 9 " 4 ° ; Michel, La Commune, pp. 140-41; and Paul Lanjalley and Paul Corriez, His-
toire de la revolution du 18 mars (Paris: A. Lacroix, Verboeckhoven, 1871), p. 27. O t h e r s

have maintained that Lecomte knew his m e n would n o t fire o n w o m e n and children
and h o p e d merely to frighten the crowd by o r d e r i n g his m e n to load their guns and fix
their bayonets. See Tombs, War against Paris, p. 45. Da Costa r e p o r t e d that Lecomte or-
d e r e d his m e n to charge the crowd, n o t to fire u p o n it. Da Costa, La Commune vecue
1:12-13. T h e decision to execute Lecomte later in the day was based at least partially
on a deeply held conviction that h e had o r d e r e d his m e n to fire on the crowd three
times earlier in the day.
Regardless of how stalwart the crowd was at the b e g i n n i n g of this confrontation,
Lecomte's soldiers refused to obey the orders to fire on their fellow Parisians. Accord-
ing to La verite sur la commune, Lecomte then b e c a m e so e n r a g e d that "he t u r n e d his re-
volver o n [his own troops] and t h r e a t e n e d to blow o u t the brains of those w h o refused
to fire." Lecomte, in this version, was then s u r r o u n d e d by the people and almost lynched
on the spot. La vbite sur la Commune, p. 240.
20. Michel, La Commune, p. 140.
23. La verite sur la Commune, pp. 231, 234—36; Lefebvre, La proclamation de la Com-
mune, p. 245.
24. La verite sur la Commune, p. 235, 239-40; Michel, La Commune, p. 140; A r t h u r
Chevalier in Da Costa, La Commune vecue 1:15.
26. La verite sur la Commune, pp. 2 3 9 - 4 0 ; Lissagaray, Histoire de la Commune,
pp. 1 1 0 - 1 1 . Also see Lefebvre, La proclamation, p. 254; Edwards, The Paris Commune,
P- 139-
27. Lepelletier, Histoire de la Commune, p. 417. General J o s e p h Vinoy was the com-
m a n d e r of Paris a n d was in charge of the attack on the cannons.
28. Da Costa, La Commune vecue 1:16-17; Lepelletier, Histoire de la Commune
1:422-23; Clemenceau, Clemenceau, p. 174; Lefebvre, La proclamation, pp. 257-58;
Tombs, War against Paris, p. 46. Accounts of the n u m b e r of casualties vary.
29. T h e Times correspondent, who h a d h u r r i e d off to Belleville and the buttes Chau-
m o n t while it was still early, was astonished to see the fraternizing of army troops and
national g u a r d s m e n h e had watched at M o n t m a r t r e repeated there while the army wait-
ed for horses to pull t h e guns they had taken. Times, March 20, 1871 (dateline: Paris,
March 18), p. g.
30. Lissagaray, Histoire de la Commune, pp. 111-13; Edwards, The Paris Commune,
pp. 144-45; Tombs, War against Paris, pp. 5 0 - 5 1 .
31. Ernest Vizetelly, a n o t h e r English r e p o r t e r who, like the Times c o r r e s p o n d e n t
spent the day wandering a r o u n d the city, watched as soldiers "sold their weapons for a
few francs, and then b e t o o k themselves to wine-shops where they soon got intoxicated."
Vizetelly, My Adventures in the Commune (London: Chatto and Windus, 1914), p. 53.
Susanna Barrows has d e m o n s t r a t e d that late nineteenth-century analysts o f t e n attrib-
uted "irrational m o b behavior" to alcoholism. Susanna Barrows, Distorting Mirrors: Vi-
sions of the Crowd in Late Nineteenth-Century France (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1981), pp. 43-72.
32. T h e r e is some disagreement over whether a message f r o m the Central Commit-
tee was received by Mayer. Army Captain C o m t e Arthur-Jacques-Adolphe Beugnot, one
of the prisoners, said that Mayer told t h e m that they were being moved to where the
committee was, b u t h e did not believe the committee existed and t h o u g h t they were go-
ing to be killed. See Da Costa, La Commune vecue 1:24-
33. Captain Beugnot, q u o t e d in Le C o m t e d'Herisson, Nouveau journal d'un officier
Notes 235
d'ordonnance: La Commune (Paris: Paul Ollendorff, 1891), pp. 51-52; and in Da Costa,
La Commune vecue 1:25-26. Also see, Edwards, The Pans Commune, p. 140.
34. Beugnot, in d'Herisson, Nouveau journal, p. 54; Edwards, The Paris Commune
p. 141.
35. Reports disagree about the behavior and bravery of the two generals. Anti-Com-
mune writers represent them as brave, pro-Commune writers, as cowardly. Cf. Beugnot,
in d'Herisson, Nouveau journal, p. 55; Lissagaray, History of the Commune, p. 84 (This
passage is missing from the 1983 reprint of the 1896 Dentu edition of Lissagaray's
history.)
37. Ibid., pp. 185-87. That Clemenceau's life was in danger seems indisputable. See
his own account and that of Beugnot in d'Herisson, Nouveau journal, p. 56.
38. Edwards, The Paris Commune, pp. 147-48; Tombs, War against Paris, pp. 50-51.
39. See Armand Lanoux, Une histoire de la Commune de Paris (Paris: Bernard Grasset,
'971), 1:54; Gustave Lefranfais, Etude sur le mouvement communaliste ä Paris, en 1871
(Neuchätel: G. Guillaume fils, 1871), p. 140. Lissagaray, in contrast, believed that Thiers
acted out of contempt for the Parisians, whom he deemed "incapable of any serious ac-
tion," and out of a desire to "play the part of a Bonaparte." Lissagaray, History of the Com-
mune, p. 77. (This passage is missing from the 1983 reprint of the 1896 Dentu edition
of Lissagaray's history.) Robert Tombs's analysis inherently supports the first part of Lis-
sagaray's judgment. Tombs, War against Paris, p. 42.
40. General Vinoy so testified. Assemblee Nationale, Enqueteparlementaire 2:98, 103.
41. Tombs, War against Paris, pp. 42-43.
42. Sheppard, Shut Up in Paris, pp. 3-12; Times, March 1, 1871 (dateline: February
27), p. 4.
43. Of these four, only Louise Michel and Edmond Lepelletier were clearly present
in Montmartre. Da Costa quotes eyewitnesses extensively but does not appear to have
been one himself. The author of La vbite sur la Commune writes as though he were pre-
sent, but his anonymity makes it unverifiable.
44. Beugnot's 1888 account of his experience on the eighteenth is quoted at length
in Da Costa, La Commune vecue 1:24-32, and d'Herisson, Nouveau journal, pp. 46-58.
Chevalier is quoted by Da Costa, 1:14-15, 32-35.
47. Da Costa, La Commune vecue 1:10.
48. Ibid., pp. 12-13, 20.
50. Lissagaray, Histoire de la Commune, p. 110.
51. Assemblee Nationale, Enquete parlementaire 2:434.
52. Lepelletier, Histoire de la Commune 1:411.
53. La vbite sur la Commune, p. 232.
54. Beugnot, in d'Herisson, Journal nouveau, p. 52; and in Lepelletier, Histoire de la
Commune. 1448-49.
56. E. B. Washburne, Recollections of a Minister to France, 1869-1877 (New York:
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1887), 2:37.
57. Beugnot, in d'Herisson, Journal nouveau, p. 52; and in Lepelletier, Histoire de la
Commune 1448-49.
59. Catulle Mendes, Les 7^journees de la Commune (Paris: E. Lachaud, 1871), pp. 3-4.
236 Notes to Pages 30—36
61. Washburne, Recollections 2:36-7.

62. Alistair Home, The Fall of Paris (New York: St. Martin's, 1965), p. 271.
64. Clemenceau, Clemenceau, p. 16g.
65. Times, March 20, 1871 (dateiine: March 18), p. 9.
66. Ibid.
67. Da Costa, La Commune vecue 1:20—22.
68. Ibid., 1:20. Also see Claretie, Histoire de la revolution, p. 598.
69. Lissagaray, Histoire de la Commune, pp. 109-10.
70. Lanjalley and Corriez, Histoire de la revolution, p. 27.
72. Rials, Nouvelle histoire, p. 252; Georges Bourgin, La guerre de 1870—1871 et la Com-
mune (Paris: Flammarion, 1971), p. 167.
73. Serman, La Commune de Paris, p. 202.
74. Lefebvre, La proclamation, p. 243.
75. Lepelletier, Histoire de la Commune 1:399-400.
76. Lefebvre, La proclamation, p. 243.
77. Edwards, The Paris Commune, p. 138.
78. Bourgin, Les premieres journees de la Commune (Paris: Hachette, 1928), pp. 53-54.
7g. La verite sur la Commune, pp. 239—40.
81. Arthur Chevalier, guard of the 16gth battalion, quoted in Da Costa, La Commune
vecue 1:14-15, emphasis added. Chevalier, on the one hand, and Michel and the author
of La verite sur la Commune, on the other, may be describing different moments in the
same action, or perhaps confrontations with at least two different generals. There is no
way to be certain.
83. Vizetelly, My Adventures, p. 38.
85. Claretie, Histoire de la revolution, p. 595.
86. For an example of each, see Bruhat, Dautry, and Tersen, La Commune, p. 109;
Horne, Fall of Paris, pp. 270-71; Bourgin, Les premieres journees, pp. 5 4 - 5 5 .
87. Lepelletier, Histoire de la Commune 1:422-23. Lepelletier indicates that he was an
eyewitness on p. 421 n. 1.
88. Tombs, War against Paris, p. 46.
8g. Lepelletier, Histoire de la Commune 1:423 n. 1, emphasis added.
go. Clemenceau, Clemenceau, p. 174 n. 1.
g i . William Pembroke Fetridge, The Rise and Fall of The Paris Commune in 1871; with
a Full Account of the Bombardment, Capture, and Burning of the City (New York: Harper and
Brothers, 1871), p. 34, is an exception to the rule. Vilifying fraternizing soldiers and
guardsmen alike, he eliminated women from the story altogether and claimed that the
horse "was cut up by the soldiers of the line who had mutinied, and sold on the Place,
the proceeds of which they used for the purchase of liquor to cement their criminal
union with the insurgents, who assured them the committee had plenty of money, or
would soon have; and that the continuance of their pay, or better, was a certainty, with
less to do and better food." This version of the story had no takers among later writers.
g2. Claretie, Histoire de la rmolution, p. 598, emphasis added.
93. Ibid. Claretie uses the wordfilleto describe the women. Filles soumises and filles in-
soumiseswere the terms used to describe prostitutes who had and had not registered with
the police. In this context, the use offilles,even without an adjective, means prostitute.
94. Da Costa, La Commune vecue 1:22. Edith Thomas, the communardes' only histo-
Notes 237
rian to date, accepts Da Costa's distinction between the afternoon and morning crowds,
although she emphasizes that the housewives, too, were capable of violent action, and
points out that the harpies and the honest women of the people and the heroic
citoyennes would fight and die together on the barricades. Thomas, Les "petroteuses,"
p. 70.
96. Jellinek, The Pans Commune, p. 115, emphasis added. Jellinek also shortened
Clemenceau's estimate that the dismembering of the horse took an hour: "Halfan hour
[after the horse was killed], there was not a trace of the animal left."
97. Ibid., p. 118.
99. Rials, Nouvelle histoire, omits the entire place Pigalle incident; Serman, La Com-
mune de Paris, pp. 205-6, includes the incident but omits the horse; Soria, Grande his-
toire 1:351, omits the butchering of the horse but includes Da Costa's representation of
the women.
100. Lissagaray, Histoire de la Commune, p. 113; Da Costa, La Commune vecue 1:21-22.
101. Beugnot, in Da Costa, La Commune vecue 1:25-26.
102. Lepelletier, Histoire de la Commune 1:459-60.
103. H o m e , Fall of Paris, p. 271.
104. In French, le meurtre, la tuerie, I'execution, and l'assassination. See Bourgin, La
guerre de 1870-1871, p. 174. For discussion of the political importance of other words
applied to the Commune, see Paul Lidsky, Les ecrivains contre la Commune (Paris: Frangois
Maspero, 1972), p. 152. Twentieth-century critics of the Commune have surpassed their
nineteenth-century colleagues in their use of judgmental language. Rials, for instance,
refers to the killing of the generals as a massacre. Rials, Nouvelle histoire, p. 258.
105. Lissagaray, Histoire de la Commune, pp. 414-15, 420; Edwards, The Paris Com-
mune, p. 347; Jellinek, The Paris Commune, p. 377.
106. Da Costa, La Commune vecue 1:36; Lepelletier, Histoire de la Commune 1:4Ö3-64;
La verite sur la Commune, p. 245; Vizetelly, My Adventures, p. 45; Lissagaray, Histoire de la
Commune, p. 114; Lanjalley and Corriez, Histoire de la revolution, p. 36; Edwards, The Paris
Commune, p. 141. Although Vizetelly reportedly saw soldiers sell their "weapons" so they
could buy wine (My Adventures, p. 53), there are no other reports of soldiers abandon-
ing or surrendering their rifles when they fraternized with the national guardsmen, and
hence no reason to believe that the men who shot the generals were national guards-
men armed with army rifles. The larger number of bullets found in the body of Clement
Thomas lends credence to the belief that if he had not been taken prisoner and brought
to the rue des Rosiers, Lecomte would have been saved.
107. See, Lissagaray, Histoire de la Commune, p. 114; Vizetelly, My Adventures,
pp. 42-45; Bruhat, Dautry, and Tersen, La Commune, p. 113; and Edwards, The Paris Com-
mune, pp. 141-42.
10g. Thomas, Les "Petroteuses, "pp. 69-70.
110. Claretie, Histoire de la revolution, p. 596; Beugnot implies the presence of
women, since he says that the crowd that followed them up the hill filled the courtyard,
and that crowd contained women. Beugnot, in d'Herisson, Nouveau journal, p. 52.
113. Journal Officiel, March 19, 1871, p. 1.
114. Joanni d'Arsac, La guerre civile et la Commune de Paris en 1871 (Paris: F. Curot,
1871), p. 15.
115. Claretie, Histoire de la rh/olution, p. 598. Claretie also claimed that seventy, not
forty, bullets were found in Clement Thomas's body, a figure repeated byjellinek in The
Paris Commune, p. 121.
116. Appert, Rapport d'ensemble, p. 23.
118. Bourgin, Les premieres journees, p. 60.
119. Alphonse Daudet, "Le jardin de la rue des Rosiers," in Lettres ä un absent, Paris,
1870-1871 (Paris: Alphonse Lemirre, 1871), p. 128, reprinted in his Souvenirs d'un
homme de lettres (Paris: C. Marpon et E. Flammarion, 1888); d'Arsac, La guerre civile, p. 1
121. Lepelletier, Histoire de la Commune 1:465; Lanjalley and Corriez, Histoire de l
rhiolution, p. 39; La verite sur la Commune, p. 256.
122. Claretie, Histoire de la rhiolution, pp. 596-98.
123. Washburne, Recollections 2:36—37.
125. Goncourt, Journal, April 3, 1871, 2:757. This passage is omitted from some edi-
tions of the diary. Goncourt's failure to record the account for two weeks and his need
to assure himself that the story was not a rumor make one wonder whether he was tru-
ly certain of this report.
126. D. W. Brogan, The Development of Modern France, 1870-1939 (New York: Harp-
er and Row, 1966), 1:58. Brogan also believed that the two generals "were shot down by
unknown National Guardsmen" and that Clemenceau was "shattered by this revelation
of his own impotence and of popular savagery."
127. H o m e , The Fall of Paris, p. 272.
128. For discussion of crowd psychology later in the century, see Barrows, Distorting
Mirrors.
129. Georges Clemenceau, letter, March 30, 1871, in La verite sur la Commune,
pp. 247-48. The letter was written to the editor of Le Soir, which had published Beug-
not's memoir on March 24 and 25. The letter is also reprinted in Lanjalley and Corriez,
Histoire de la revolution, pp. 38-39.
131. Claretie, Histoire de la rhiolution, pp. 596-98.
132. Beugnot in Da Costa, La Commune vecue 1:30.
133. Daudet, Lettres, p. 128.
134. Washburne, Recollections 2:36-37.
135. Da Costa, La Commune vecue i:ig-20.
136. Claretie, Histoire de la rhiolution, p. 598.
139. Beugnot in d'Herisson, Nouveau journal, p. 55.
140. Clemenceau, Clemenceau, pp. 184-85. Clemenceau's account is self-serving but
not necessarily wrong. The notion that a stupor fell over the crowd once its bloodlust
was satisfied lingered on in histories, sometimes combined with Clemenceau's account,
so that the crowd's interest in killing the prisoners fades quickly after its encounter with
him. Edwards, The Paris Commune, p. 142; Jellinek, The Paris Commune, p. 121.
141. Adolphe Thiers, Memoirs of M. Thiers, 1870-1873, trans. F. M. Atkinson (New
York: Howard Fertig, 1973), p. 124.
142. Mendes, Les 75 journees, p. 4; Clemenceau, Clemenceau, p. 184; Vizetelly, My A
ventures, p. 2.
143. Jacques Chastenet, Histoire de la Troisieme Republique, vol. 1: Naissance etjeunesse
(Paris: Hachette, 1952), p. 72. Also see Jellinek, The Paris Commune, p. 121; Home, Fal
of Paris, p. 272.
Notes 239

145. Jellinek, The Paris Commune, pp. 329-30.
2. Remembering and Representing

1. Daily News, March 21,1871 (dateline: March 19), p. 5. Also see Lanjalley and Cor-
riez, Histoire de la revolution, p. 54.
2. Lanjalley and Corriez, Histoire de la revolution, p. 58; Mendes, Les 75 journees, p. 12;
Goncourt, Journal, March 19, 1871, 2:746-48; Da Costa, La Commune vecue 1:131-32;
Lefebvre, La proclamation, pp. 289-90; Lissagaray, Histoire de la Commune, pp. 117-21;
Times, March 21, 1871 (dateline: Paris, March 19, 4 P.M.), p. 8; Daily News, March 2 I I
1871 (dateline: March 19), p. 5. For photographs of the national guardsmen and their
barricades, see Jean Braire, Sur les traces des communards: Enquete dans les rues du Paris d 'au-
jourd'hui (Paris: Amis de la Commune, 1988).
3. I have placed quotation marks around "memories" and "remembered" to indi-
cate that these are cultural not personal memories. Seventy-seven years had elapsed
since the period of the French Revolution known as the Terror, too long for those who
had personal memories to still be alive.
4. Gibson, Paris during the Commune, p. 120; Daily News, March 21, 1871 (dateline:
March ig), p. g.
5. Mendes, Les 73 journees, p. 13.
6. Goncourt, Journal 2:747; Lanjalley and Corriez, Histoire de la rk/otution, p. 57.
Only four members of the Central Committee were generally known: Adolphe Assi, age
thirty, who assumed the leadership of the committee, was a member of the International
and had been one of the leaders of the steelworkers' strike at Le Creusot early in 1870.
Charles Lullier, thirty-three, a naval officer whose enthusiasm for the republic was not
matched by his competence, commanded the National Guard briefly and then was ar-
rested by the Commune. Gabriel Ranvier was well known for his public speeches and
for his participation in the October 31,1870, revolt, for which the Government of Na-
tional Defense was pursuing him. Eugene Varlin, age thirty-two, a bookbinder by trade
and a member of the International, active in the strike movements of the 1860s, was a
member of both the Central Committee and the Commune. Jean Maitron and M. Egrot,
eds., Dictionnairebiographique du mouvement ouvrierfran(ais, part 2:1864-1871 (Paris: Ou-
vrieres, 1964-69).
7. Goncourt, Journal, March 19, 1871, 2:747.
8. Times, March 2 1 , 1 8 7 1 (dateline: Paris, March 19, 4:00 P.M.), p. 8.
9. Edwards, The Paris Commune, pp. 123-24; Jellinek, The Paris Commune, p. 94.
10. Those who might have taken decisive action were either not in the city or were
not members of the committee. Most important, Auguste Blanqui, the veteran revolu-
tionary of 1830 and 1848 who by 1871 was legendary in revolutionary and socialist cir-
cles, was once again in prison, this time for his activities during the failed uprising of
October 31, 1870.
12. Journal Officiel, March 20, 1871, p. 1. Also see Jellinek, The Paris Commune, p. 134;
Edwards, The Paris Commune, p. 161. This statement, widely believed to be true during
the Commune (although parts of it now appear to be debatable), simply gave Thiers
more reason to characterize the Central Committee as assassins in his communiques
with the provinces. The state prosecutor in the trial of the Communard leaders in Au-
gust repeated this statement by the Central Committee in his opening statement to con-
demn the rebellion from the outset. See Gaulois, August 9, 1871, p. 3.
13. Lissagaray, Histoire de la Commune, pp. 118-33; Edwards, The Paris Commune, p.
165; Goncourt, Journal, March 20-21, 1871, 2:748-50.
14. Although Thiers p u s h e d the National Assembly for quick ratification of the
terms of the peace treaty with Prussia, which was the Prussian r e q u i r e m e n t for leaving
Paris, in the eyes of the Parisians, his role in negotiating the treaty left him responsible
for the Prussian occupation of the city. J. P. T. Bury and R. P. Tombs, Thiers, 1797-1877:
A Political Life (London: Allen and Unwin, 1986), p. 199.
15. Jules Simon, L'ouvriere, 3d ed. (Paris: L. Hachette, 1861), p. v. Also see Gay L. Gul-
lickson, "Womanhood and M o t h e r h o o d : T h e R o u e n Manufacturing Community,
Women Workers, and the French Factory Acts," in The European Peasant Family and Soci-
ety: Historical Studies, ed. Richard L. R u d o l p h (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press,
1
995)> PP- 206-32.
16. J o a n Wallach Scott, '"L'Ouvriere! Mot Impie, Sordide . . .': W o m e n Workers in
the Discourse of French Political Economy, 1840-1860," in h e r Gender and the Politics of
History (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), pp. 139-63.
17. E u g e n e Varlin, o n e of the most politically radical m e m b e r s of the committee (he
was also a m e m b e r of the International), drew u p the list. Varlin, himself, would have
p r e f e r r e d a m o r e radical set of demands, but h e believed that the revolution had oc-
c u r r e d too soon and that these d e m a n d s were all the city could reasonably expect to
win. T h e National Assembly and Thiers refused to accept even these d e m a n d s w h e n they
were presented to t h e m o n March 20.
18. Jellinek, The Paris Commune, p. 137; Edwards, The Paris Commune, pp. 155-67.
19. Bury and Tombs, Thiers, pp. 52-55, 103-4, 1 1 7 _ 1 9 > 123-26.
20. Journal Officiel, March 19, 1871 ( m o r n i n g edition).
21. Goncourt, Journal, March 28, 1871, 2:753.
22. Jacobins and Blanquists looked back to the French Revolution and the constitu-
tion of 1793 for inspiration. Jacobins believed Parisians would lead the overthrow of the
existing o r d e r and institute a republican, anticlerical government. Blanquists believed
in a revolution led by a disciplined party of (radical bourgois) revolutionaries that would
gain control of the government and institute social reforms. Proudhonists believed in
workers' cooperatives and self-governing g r o u p s of producers, and distrusted all gov-
e r n m e n t . Communists (or Marxists) were m e m b e r s of the International Working Men's
Association and believed in a working-class revolution that would create an economic
revolution. Jellinek, The Paris Commune, pp. 19-39; Edwards, The Paris Commune, pp. 210
- 1 5 ; Francois Furet, Revolutionary France, 1770-1880, trans. Antonia Nevill (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1992), pp. 500-504.
23. T h e salary of six thousand francs a year was actually a good bit h i g h e r than the
average salary of skilled workmen, b u t it was considerably lower than the salary paid
to politicians elsewhere. Perhaps most important, it was a democratic move away f r o m
a parliamentary system that paid n o o n e and h e n c e was restricted to the wealthy. See
Jellinek, The Paris Commune, p. 391; Edwards, The Paris Commune, pp. 189-91, 207-8,
250-57-
24. T h e decree on rents was also very p o p u l a r a m o n g the petite bourgeoisie.
25. Du Camp, Les convulsions 4:325.
26. Ibid., 4:326.
27. Gibson, Paris during the Commune, April 7, 1871, pp. 166-67.
28. Ibid., April 18, 1871, p. 198.
29. See, for instance, Appert, Rapport d'ensemble, p. 62; Barrows, Distorting Mirrors.
30. Journal Officiel, March 19, 1 8 7 1 , p . l . T h e Journal Officiel was still u n d e r the con-
trol of the national government.
31. Cri du Peuple, April 20, 26, 1871; Commune, March 20, 1871; Vizetelly, My Ad-
Notes 241
ventures, p. 2 30; William Linton, The Paris Commune: In Answer to the Calumnies of the "New
York Tribune" (Boston: N.p., 1871), pp. 13-17.
32. Gibson, Paris during the Commune, April 13, 1871, p. 186.
33. Ibid., April 22, 1871, p. 220.
34. Philibert Audebrand, Histoire intime de la revolution du 18 mars (Paris: E. Dentu,
1871), p. iv.
35. See, for instance, Jules Simon, The Government of M. Thiers, from 8th February 1871
to 24th May 1873 (New York: Scribner's, 1879); Washburne, Recollections 2:163; Appert,
Rapport d'ensemble, p. 87; A u d e b r a n d , Histoire intime, p. iv.
36. Appert, Rapport d'ensemble, pp. 59-62.
38. Lissagaray, Histoire de la Commune, pp. 137-40; Edwards, The Paris Commune,
pp. 171-72; Jellinek, The Paris Commune, pp. 138-45.
39. Times, March 23, 1871 (dateline: Versailles, March 23, noon), p. 10; Edwards,
The Paris Commune, pp. 178-79.
40. Journal Officiel, April 6, 1871; Lefebvre, La proclamation, pp. 371-72; Edwards,
The Paris Commune, p. 200.
41. Gibson, Paris during the Commune, April 14, 1871, p. 188.
42. Vizetelly, My Adventures, p. 159; "A Victim of Paris and Versailles," Macmillan's
Magazine 24 (September i87i):385.
43. Vizetelly, My Adventures, pp. 141, 165, 167; L'lllustration, May 6, 1871, p. 285.
44. Goncourt, Journal, May 7, 1871, 2:793-94.
45. See, for instance, Standard, April 8, 1871, editorial, p. 4.
46. Journal de Bruxelles, April 6, evening, quoted in Standard, April 7, 1871.
47. Edwards, The Paris Commune, pp. 284-85; Times, May 9, 1871; Vizetelly, My Ad-
ventures, pp. 262-63.
48. Gustave Courbet, quoted in Jellinek, The Paris Commune, p. 244.
49. Goncourt, Journal, May 7, 1871, 2:793.
51. D o m i n i q u e Godineau, Citoyennes tricoteuses: Les femmes du peuple ä Paris pendant la
Revolution franfaise (Aix-en-Provence: Alinea, 1988), pp. 13-14; Gutwirth, Twilight of the
Goddesses, pp. 322-24.
5 2. E. Lairtullier, Les femmes celebres de 1789dl 79 5, et leur influence dans la Revolution
(Paris: chez France, ä la Librairie Politique, 1840), 2:199-200.
53. Ibid., 2:200.
55. New York Herald, May 5, 1871, p. 4.
56. Journal Officiel, April 10, 1871; Mendes, Les 73 journees, p. 140.
57. Goncourt, Journal, May 5, 1871,2:789-90.
58. Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (1859; rpt. New York: Washington Square
Press, i960), pp. 452-53, emphasis added.
59. Washburne, Recollections 2:110.
60. John Russell Young, Men and Memories: Personal Reminiscences, ed. Mary D. Russell
Young (New York: F. Tennyson Neely, 1901), 1:198. Young's memoir of the Commune
is dated May 28, 1871.
61. Ibid.
62. [Charles] Bertall, The Communists of Paris, 1871: Types, Physiognomies, Characters
with Explanatory Text Descriptive of Each Design Written Expressly for This Edition (London:
Buckingham, 1873), text accompanying illustration no. 38, "Une Citoyenne (Preposee
ä la garde de la rue de Lille)." The reference to Communists in the title of the book re-
veals the anti-Commune bias of the writer at the outset.
63. Denis Arthur Bingham, Recollections ofParis (London: Chapman and Hall, i8g6),
2:124. Bingham wrote daily reports for the Pall Mall Gazette and more occasionally for
the Army and Navy Gazette and the Scotsman. During the Prussian siege and the Paris Com-
mune, he kept a diary on which this book is based.
64. Ibid., 2:i24n.
65. Home, Fall of Paris, p. 99.
67. See, for instance, Francisque Sarcey's column in Gaulois, April 5, 1871, p. 1; Au-
gustine-Melvine Blanchecotte, Tablettes d'une femme pendant la commune (Paris: Didier,
1872), May 3, 1871, p. 130. Sarcey did not record the words of the women he observed,
but he did perceive them as "more enraged than the men" and as "intoxicated from the
joy of this festival."
68. Michel, La Commune, p. 206, emphasis added. I have translated louve as "she-
wolf," but it also means "wanton woman."
3. The Symbolic Female Figure

1. Lissagaray, Histoire de la Commune, p. 306. The records of the Commune do not
include the number of women killed and wounded.
2. For bourgeois Frenchmen in particular, personal courage was a crucial compo-
nent of masculinity. The working-class National Guard stood largely outside this culture
of honor which involved dueling and other acts of personal courage, but they were not
the authors of the public speeches and articles that spoke of dead and wounded men as
martyrs rather than as victims. Robert A. Nye, Masculinity and Male Codes ofHonor in Mod-
ern France (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), pp. 216—20.
3. See, for instance, Mot d'Ordre, April 8, 1871, p. 1, "Les martyrs de la Commune."
4. Charles Delescluze, "A la garde nationale," May 10, 1871, quoted in Lanjalley
and Corriez, Histoire de la rhjolution, p. 441.
5. Daumier was a supporter of the Commune, but he made no drawings of the se-
maine sanglante. As a result, "Horrified by the Heritage" seems to speak for his reaction
to the bloodshed of that and the following weeks as well as for the earlier Franco-Pruss-
ian War. See Ralph E. Shikes, The Indignant Eye: The Artist as Social Critic in Prints and
Drawings from the Fifteenth Century to Picasso (Boston: Beacon, 1969), p. 193.
6. Linda Nochlin, "Women, Art, and Power," in her Women, Art, and Power and Oth-
er Essays (New York: Harper and Row, 1988), pp. 4-6.
8. The early pro-Versailles histoires of the Commune include a scene in the garden
in which General Lecomte pleads to be spared for the sake of his five children. Such
texts emphasize the importance of women and children in the emotional pantheon of
the bourgeois Frenchmen, even though Lecomte's wife is not explicitly mentioned in
his lament. Alphonse Daudet's description is among the most detailed: "Falling on his
knees and speaking of his children: 'I have five,' he said sobbing. The heart of the fa-
ther had burst inside the soldier's tunic. There were fathers among this furious crowd.
At his heart-rending appeal, a few weak voices responded; but the implacable deserters
would hear nothing." Daudet, Souvenirs, p. 72. Also see Claretie, Histoire de la rhjolution,
p. 598; Henri Rochefort, The Adventures of My Life, arranged for English readers by the
author and Ernest W. Smith (London: Edward Arnold, 1896), 1:349.
9. Lanjalley and Corriez, Histoire de la revolution, p. 1 go; Cri du Peuple, April 4, 1871,
p. 1.
Notes 243
11. New York Herald, May 5, 1871 (dateiine: Paris, April 19), p. 10.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid., May 3, 1871, p. 7. The dispatch also appeared in the New York Times, May
3, 1871, p. 1.
14. Vizetelly, My Adventures, pp. 226-27.
15. Ibid., p. 227.
16. Bingham, Recollections 2:54. The reference to flour is obscure. It may have been
used as a lubricant for chassepot cartridges to facilitate their removal from the gun af-
ter they had been fired, or perhaps it was used as a cushioning agent in packing crates.
17. For descriptions, see Goncourt, Journal, May 17, 1871, 2:801; Vizetelly, My Ad-
ventures, p. 283; New York Times, May 19, 1871 (dateline: Paris, May 18), p. 1; Times, May
20, 1871 (dateline: Paris, May 18), p. 5; Home, Fall of Paris, p. 352.
18. For eyewitness accounts of the damage, see Times, May 20, 1871, p. 5 (dateline:
Paris, May 18); Edwin Child, quoted in Home, Fall of Paris, p. 352; Goncourt, Journal,
May 17, 1871, 2:801; Gibson, Paris during the Commune, May 17, pp. 241-42.
19. New York Times, May 19, 1871 (dateline: Paris, May 18), p. 1.
20. Gibson, Paris during the Commune, (May 17, 1871), p. 241.
21. Child, quoted in Home, Fall of Paris, p. 352.
23. Times, May 18, 1871 (dateline: Paris, Wednesday evening [May 17]), p. 5.
24. Journal Officiel, q u o t e d in Times, May 19, 1871.
25. Gibson, Paris during the Commune, pp. 2 4 1 - 4 2 ; Lissagaray, Histoire de la Commune,
p. 290.
26. Gibson, Paris during the Commune, p. 241.
27. Times, May 20, 1871 (dateline: Paris, May 18), p. 5.
28. New York Times, May 19, 1871 (dateline: Paris, May 18), p. 1. Also see New York
Herald, May i g , 1871, p. 7.
29. Lewis Wingfield quoted in Home, Fall of Paris, p. 352.
30. New York Times, May 19, 1871 (dateline: Paris, May 18), p. 1.
31. New York Tribune, June 2, 1871 (dateline: Paris, May 18), p. 1.
32. The text of the proclamation is published in Lanjalley and Corriez, Histoire de la
revolution, p. 497.
33. Lissagaray, Histoire de la Commune, pp. 2go-gi, app. 15, pp. 485-86.
36. Times, April 8, 1871 (dateline: Paris, April 7, 6:30 P.M.), p. 7. Also see Vengeur,
April 12, 1871, p. 1; Mot d'Ordre, April 6, 1871, p. 1; Cri du Peuple, April 8, 1871, p. 1.
37. Times, April 6, 1871 (dateline: Paris, April 4), p. 10; Vengeur, April 12, 1871, p. 1
(reprinted from Le Droit).
38. Lissagaray, Histoire de la Commune, pp. 203-4. Also see Mot d'Ordre, April 8, 1871,
p. 1; Lepelletier, Histoire de la Commune 3:310-15; Lanjalley and Corriez, Histoire de la
revolution, pp. 224~2g; Mendes, Les 73 journees, p. 108.
3g. Lanjalley and Corriez, Histoire de la revolution, p. 224, emphasis added.
40. Lissagaray, Histoire de la Commune, pp. 203-4.
41. Journal Officiel, April 11, 1871; Lanjalley and Corriez, Histoire de la resolution, April
10, 1871, pp. 2 5 2 - 5 3 . Les muraillespolitiques franfaises, 2: La Commune, 18 mars-27 mai
1871 (Paris: L. La Chevalier, 1874), n.p.
42. New York Tribune, May 25, 1871, p. 1; Mendes, Les 73 journees, p. 134, i 6 2 ; J o h n
Leighton, Paris under the Commune (London: Bradbury Evans, 1871), p. 152; Vizetelly,
My Adventures, p. 168.
43. Page duBois, Centaurs and Amazons (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press,
1982); Robert Graves, The Greek Myths (New York: George Braziller, 1957), 1:352-55;
Abby Wettan Kleinbaum, The War against the Amazons (New York: New Press, 1983),
p. 16; Wolfgang Lederer, The Fear of Women (New York: Grune and Stratton, 1968); Sarah
B. Pomeroy, Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity (New York:
Schocken, 1975), pp. 23-25; Guy Rothery, The Amazons in Antiquity and Modern Times
(London: F. Griffiths, igio); Pierre Samuel, Amazones, guerrieres, etgaillardes (Grenoble:
Presses Universitaires de Grenoble, 1975); Donald J. Sobol, The Amazons of Greek Mythol-
ogy (London: Thomas Yoseloff, 1972); William Blake Tyrell, Amazons: A Study in Athen-
ian Myth-making (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984); Marina Warner,
Joan of Arc: The Image of Female Heroism (New York: Knopf, 1981).
44. Warner, Joan of Arc, p. 215.
45. Graves, The Greek Myths 1:352-55; duBois, Centaurs and Amazons, p. 33.
46. See Warner, Joan of Arc, pp. 204-5; Heinrich von Kleist, Penthesilee, trans. Julien
Gracq (Paris: Librairie Jose Corti, 1954).
47. Warner, Joan of Arc, pp. 7, 198-217.
48. AHG Ly22, Union des Femmes pour la Defense de Paris et les Soins aux Blesses,
Statuts; Michel, La Commune, pp. 250-57; La Sociale, April 28, May 15, 1871; Thomas,
Les "Petroleuses,"pp. 83-100.
4g. "Les Femmes au Combat," Vengeur, April 12, 1871, p. 1, reprinted from Droit.
50. Gibson, Paris during the Commune, March 20, 1871, p. 119.
51. "A Victim of Paris and Versailles," Macmillan's Magazine 24 (1871) :386-87.
52. Du Camp, Les convulsions de Paris 2:60-61.
53. "A Victim of Paris and Versailles," p. 389.
54. Bertall, Communists of Paris, text for illustration no. 16.
55. Alix Payen, "Une ambulanciere de la Commune de Paris," in Memoires de femmes,
memoire du peuple, ed. Louis Constant (Paris: Maspero, 1979), pp. 61-87. Some of the
letters are dated by the month only.
56. Ibid., pp. 62-63.
57. Victorine [Brocher/Brochon], Souvenirs d'une morte vivante (1909; rpt. Paris:
Maspero, 1976), pp. 178, 182.
58. Payen, "Une ambulanciere," April 24, 1871, p. 72.
59. Ibid., p. 71.
60. Ibid., pp. 64, 83.
62. Payen, "Une ambulanciere," pp. 84-87.
63. Rist (an engineer) and Julien (commandant of the 141st Battalion), quoted in
Lissagaray, Histoire de la Commune, p. 260.
64. Brocher, Souvenirs, p. 178.
65. Elisee Reclus, Correspondance (Paris, 1911), vol. 2, quoted in Da Costa, La Com-
mune vecue 1:373. Reclus reported that a vast, horrified silence fell among the soldiers.
66. Sociale, May 13, 1871; Cri du Peuple, May 21, 1871. At the daily meeting of the
Commune on May 17, Raoul Urbain read a report to this effect from an officer of the
National Guard and suggested that the Commune should execute ten hostages in
reprisal, and then, for good measure, proposed that ten hostages should be executed
every day to punish the attrocities of the Versaillais. As usual the commune declined to
execute any hostages. See Proces-verbaux de la Commune de 1871, ed. Georges Bourgi
and Gabriel Henriot (Paris: A. Lahure, 1945), 2:380; Lanjalley and Corriez, Histoire de
la revolution, p. 493; Thomas, Les "petroleuses, " p. 16o;Jellinek, The Paris Commune, p. 292;
Vizetelly, My Adventures, p. 289.
67. Andre Leo, "Aventures de neuf ambulancieres ä la recherche d'un poste de
devouement," Sociale, May 6, 1871, p. 1.
Notes 245
68. Ibid.
69. Ibid.
70. Louis Rossel, "Lettre," Sociale, May 7, 1871, p. 1.
71. Cri du Peuple, May 3, 1871.
72. Ibid., April 5, p. 2, and April 6, 1871, p. 1; Sociale, April 6, 1871, p. 1; Mot d'Or-
dre, April 5, 1871, p. 1; Vizetelly, My Adventures, p. 150. Some accounts describe meet-
ings on April 4; some on April 5. Early histories followed suit. Lanjalley and Corriez, His-
toire de la revolution, pp. 201-2; Lissagaray, Histoire de la Commune, p. 185.
73. "Les femmes," Cri du Peuple,, April 4, 1871, p. 1. T h e article also a p p e a r e d in Ac-
tion o n the same day.
74. Beatrix Excoffons, "Recit," in Michel, La Commune, pp. 459—60. Either Excoffons
got the date wrong or there is a typographical e r r o r in the text. She says the meeting
was o n April 1; it seems most likely that she is talking a b o u t April 4, although Edith
T h o m a s t h o u g h t she was referring to April 3. Thomas, Us "petroleuses, "p. 72.
75. Sociale, April 6, 1871, p. 1.
76. Blanchecotte, Tabkttes d'unefemme, April 5, evening, pp. 42-43.
77. Excoffons, "Recit," pp. 460-63.
78. Lanjalley and Corriez, Histoire de la revolution, pp. 201-2. William Shakespeare,
Julius Caesar3.2.7g.
79- Times, April 6, 1871 (dateline: Paris, April 4), p. 10. Maillard, a m e m b e r of the
Parisian National Guard in 178g, was chosen by the w o m e n to lead their procession to
Versailles to d e m a n d bread f r o m the king in October.
80. R. C., "Les femmes," Cri du Peuple, April 5, 1871, p. 2; 7 m « , April 6, 1871 (date-
line: Pans, April 4), p. 10.
81. Times, April 6, 1871 (dateline: Paris, April 4), p. 10.
82. Journal Officiel, April 11, 1871; Commune, April 11, 1871; Sociale, April 12 1871
83. Sociale, April 12, 1871, p. 2.
84. Ibid.
85. Journal Officiel, April 14, 1871; Cri du Peuple, April 16, 1871
86. "Women's Appeal for Peace," May 3, 1871, reprinted in Lanjalley a n d Corriez
Histoire de la revolution, p. 385; Journal Officiel, May 8 , 1 8 7 1 .
87. Bingham, Recollections 2:17.
88. A n d r e Rossel, 1870: La premiere "grande" guerre, par Vaffiche et Vimage (Paris' Les
Yeux Ouverts, 1970), d o c u m e n t 31; Andre Leo, "Toutes avec tous," Sociale, April 12
1871, pp. i-2-Liberie, O c t o b e r 3, 18 70; Baron Marc de Villiers, Histoire des clubs de femmes
et des legions damazones, i793, j848, 1871 (Paris: Plön, 1910), pp. 383-85- Ernest A
Vizetelly, My Days ofAdventure: The Fall ofFrance, 1870—71 (London: Chatto and Windus
1914), pp. 134-37; Thomas, Les "petroleuses, " p p . 55-56.
89. Q u o t e d in Villiers, Histoire des clubs, p. 384.
90. Ibid.; Thomas, Les "petroleuses, "p. 56.
91. Leo, "Toutes avec tous," p. 1. Leo declared that the female battalions had n o t
been created because General Trochu, who was president of the G o v e r n m e n t of Na-
IHETDE^^"56 AN<1 ^ CHAI SE

" ° F THC FRCNCH F°RCES DURING THC SI£GE ° F PARIS' HAD °PP°SED
92^ It is possible to see sexual implications in the admiring glance between the last
naked w o m a n and the clothed amazon, especially since she holds the phallic bugle
Men s obsession with female sexuality in the n i n e t e e n t h century seems to have been
overwhelmingly heterosexual, however. Castration, n o t homosexuality, was the feared
crime It thus seems m o r e likely that a nineteenth-century observer would have inter-
preted the glance as envious r a t h e r than lustful. See Josine Blok, "Sexual Asymmetry A
Histonographical Essay," in Sexual Asymmetry: Studies in Ancient Society, ed Blok and Pe-
ter Mason (Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben, 1987), pp. 1-57; Neil Hertz, "Medusa's Head:
Male Hysteria under Political Pressure," Representations 4 (Fall ig8g):27-79.
93. Vizetelly, My Days of Adventure, p. 136.
94. As mayor of the eighth arrondissement, Allix also tried to institute a number of
reforms in education and women's employment. Edwards, The Paris Commune, pp. g2,
379; Thomas, Les "petroleuses, "pp. 53-54.
95. Edwards, The Paris Commune, pp. g2, 379.
96. Quoted in Home, Fall of Paris, p. 133.
97. Jellinek, The Paris Commune, p. 74.
98. Mendes, Les 73 journees, pp. 160-61; Leighton, Paris under the Commune,
pp. 176-77. Mendes's text appears almost verbatim in Leighton's. Most departures oc-
cur when Leighton decides to augment Mendes's already hyperbolic prose. What ex-
actly is going on here is unclear. Leighton might be a pseudonym for Mendes, or
Leighton might have plagiarized the French text. The translations of Mendes are mine,
not Leighton's.
99. Leo, "Toutes avec tous," p. 1.
100. Biographie universelle: Ancienne et moderne, ed. J. Franf ois Michaud (Graz, Austria:
Akademische Druck-u. Verlagsanstadt, 1967), 2:313.
101. Mendes, Les 73 journees, pp. 160-61; Leighton, Paris under the Commune,
p. 174.
102. Mendes, Les 73 journees, pp. 162-63; Leighton, Paris under the Commune, p. 176.
104. "Les femmes au combat," Vengeur, April 12, 1871, p. 1, reprinted from Droit; Cri
du Peuple, April 5, 14, 1871; Journal Officiel, April 10, 1871; Sociale, May 6, 1871.
105. Vizetelly, My Adventures, pp. 168, 272.
106. Commissaire, Memoires et souvenirs 2:373.
107. Times, May 18, 1871, p. 5.
108. Malon, La troisieme defaite, p. 27g.
109. Simon, Government of Thiers, p. 466.
110. Sociale, April 12, 1871; Commune, April 14, 1871.
111. Malon, La Troisieme defaite, p. 280.
113. Mendes, Les 73 journees, pp. 136, 134-35; Leighton, Paris under the Commune,
pp. 154, 152-53. (Leighton inserts a reference to a needle-gun and a bayonet. "What
extraordinary beings are these who exchange the needle for the needle-gun, the broom
for the bayonet.")
114. Mendes, Les 73 journees, p. 135; Leighton, Paris under the Commune, p. 153.
116. [P.-O.] Lissagaray, Les huit journees de mai: Derriere les barricades (Brussels: Burea
du Petit Journal, 1871; rpt. Paris: Editions d'Histoire Sociale, 1968), pp. 61-62; Michel,
La Commune, p. 305; Edith Thomas, Louise Michel; ou, La velleda de Vanarchie (Paris: Gal-
limard, 1971), p. 99; Lissagaray, Histoire de la Commune, p. 327; Edwards, The Paris Com-
mune, p. 318; Jellinek, The Paris Commune, p. 325. Other drawings, however, also show
women and men defending the place Blanche together. See, for instance, "Women De-
fending the Barricade in the Place Blanche," Penny Illustrated News, reproduced in
Bruhat, Dautry, and Tersen, La Commune de 1871, p. ig2.
117. Paul Fontoulieu, Les eglises de Paris sous la Commune (Paris: E. Dentu, 1873),
pp. 15, 79, 113.
118. Thomas, Les "petroleuses, "pp. 110, 114-16; Fontoulieu, Eglises, pp. 80, 163-65.
119. Fontoulieu, p. 159.
Notes 247
120. Ibid., p. 64.

121. Ibid., p. xxii.
1
122. Ibid., p. 49.
123. Tribun du Peuple, May ig, 1871; Gibson, Paris during the Commune, May ig,
p. 23g; Vizetelly, My Adventures, pp. 231-47.
124. Fontoulieu, Eglises, pp. 63-64; Edwards, The Paris Commune, p. 288; Bruhat,
Dautry, and Tersen, Commune de i8yi, p. 160.
125. Fontoulieu, Eglises, pp. 106, 7g, 272; Villiers, Histoire des clubs, p. 39g.
126. Fontoulieu, Eglises, p. 27g; Edwards, The Paris Commune, p. 107.
127. Thomas, Les "petroleuses,"pp. iog-17; Fontoulieu, Eglises, p. 16.
128. An article by Marius (the pseudonym of Maxime Villiers) in Tribun du Peuple on
May ig, 1871, is the only extensive article on the clubs in the Commune press. For short-
er pro-Commune accounts with very little information about women, see Lissagaray,
Histoire de la Commune, p. 2gg; Michel, La Commune, p. 246.
12g. Goncourt, Journal, May 7, 1871, 2:7g6.
130. Daily News, May 16, 1871, p. 3.
131. Bingham, Recollections 2:6o.
132. Young, Men and Memories i:ig8.
133. Washburne, Recollections, p. 110.
134. Young, Men and Memories 1:198.
13g. Washburne, Recollections, p. 110. Gibson was also fascinated by discussions of di-
vorce. Gibson, Paris during the Commune, May 15, 1871, pp. 240-41.
136. Young, Men and Memmies, 1:198.
137. Times, May 6, 1871, (dateline: May 4), p. 10.
138. Fontoulieu, Eglises, pp. 105, 271.
Mendes also commented on the "naturally hideous" faces of the men.
140. Daily Nexus, May 16, 1871, p. 3.
141. Washburne, Recollections, p. 110; Young, Men and Memories, 1:198.
142. Mendes, Les 73 journees, p. 272; Leighton, Under the Commune, p. 283.
143. Times, May 6, 1871 (dateline: May 4), p. 10.
144. Fontoulieu, Eglises, pp. 16,49,63, 105, 106, 113.
145. The reference is to the Orleanist or July Monarchy which followed the Revolu-
tion of 1830. It was a change from the Bourbon monarchy, but it was still a monarchy.
A "real" change would have been the institution of a republic.
146. Mendes, Les 75 journees, pp. 272—73; Leighton, Under the Commune, pp. 282—83.
147. The caricature is reproduced in James A. Leith, "The War of Images Sur-
rounding the Commune," in Images in the Commune/Images de la Commune, ed. Leith
(MonUeal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1978), p. 137, and see pp. 136, xiii.
148. Ibid., pp. 138, xiii.
149. Times, May 6, 1871, p. 10. Such statements were cited as proof of the Com-
mune's intention to burn the city.
150. Edouard Manet, Constanun Guys, Honore Daumier, and Pierre-Auguste
Renoir painted the amazone "attired in black, in an outfit that included a tall, narrow,
and rather masculine top hat, and a slim almost tubular black skirt." Kleinbaum, War
against the Amazons, p. 191.
151. Moses, French Feminism, pp. 173—212.
ig2. Du Camp, Les convulsions 2:60-61.
ig3. Vizetelly, My Adventures, pp. 246-47.
154. H o m e , Fall of Paris, p. 337.
155. Richard Cobb, "The Women of the Commune," in Cobb, A Second Identity,
p. 232.
156. Warner,Joan of Arc, p. 274.
4. The Femmes Fortes of Paris

1. Alexandre] de Mazade, ed., Lettres et notes intimes, 1870-i8yi (Beaumont-sur-
Oise: Paul Fremont, 1892), pp. 598-99.
2. "Citoyennes," Cri du Peuple, April 4, 1871, p. 1.
3. Ibid.
4. "Les femmes," Cri du Peuple, April 6, 1871, p. 2.
5. Ibid. Both articles hold Versailles responsible "before all of France."
6. "Citoyennes," Cri du Peuple, April 4, 1871, p. 1.
7. "Les Femmes," Cri du Peuple, April 6, 1871, p. 2.
8. "Appel aux citoyennes de Paris," Commune, April 11, 1871, p. 2; also printed in
Sociale, April 12, 1871, p. 2.
9. "Appel aux citoyennes."
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid.
14. Thomas, Les "petroleuses," pp. 83-100; Edith Thomas, The Women Incendiaries,
trans. James Atkinson and Starr Atkinson (New York: George Braziller, 1966), pp. 70-87;
Edwards, The Paris Commune, p. 266.
15. Journal Officiel, April 14, 1871. Eightwomen signed this open letter to the Exec-
utive Commission of the Paris Commune, Elizabeth Dmietrieff, Adelaide Valentin,
Noemie Colleville, Marquant, Sophie Graix, Josephine Prat, and Celine and Aimee Del-
vainquier.
16. Ibid.
17. Comite Central, Union des Femmes, to Commission de Travail et d'Echange,
n.d., signed by Elizabeth Dmietrieff, in AHG, Ly 22. In addition to her proposals re-
garding women, Dmietrieff called for the creation of free producer associations in
which workers would manage their own affairs, "the diversification of work in each
trade, repetitive manual movements being deadly to the body and the mind," "the re-
duction of working hours, physical exhaustion leading inevitably to the extinction of
the moral faculty," an organization to facilitate the movement and exchange of goods,
and ultimately, membership in the International Working Men's Association for all
workers in the producer associations.
18. Ibid.
19. See Olwen Hufton, "Women in Revolution, 1789-1796" Past and Present, no. 53
(1971): 90-108; Olwen H. Hufton, Women and the Limits of Citizenship in the French Rev-
olution (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992), pp. 89-130; and Andre Leo, "La
revolution sans la femme," Sociale, May 8, 1871.
20. Women regularly denounced draft dodgers as cowards and traitors in the polit-
ical clubs.
21. "Republique franfaise: Liberte, egalite, fraternite," May 3, 1871, reprinted in
Lanjalley and Corriez, Histoire (te la revolution, p. 385.
22. "Manifeste du Comite Central de l'Union des Femmes pour la Defense de Paris
et les Soins aux Blesses," Journal Officiel, May 6, 1871, signed by La Commission executive
du Comite central, Le Mel, Jacquier, Lefevre [sic], Leloup, Dmitrieff, reprinted in Lanjal-
Notes 249
ley and Corriez, Histoire de la revolution, pp. 4 1 0 - 1 1 . Original handwritten manifesto is

, in AGH Ly 2 2.
23. Ibid.
24. For biographical information a b o u t A n d r e Leo, see Maitron and Egrot, Diction-
naire biographique, 7:52, 230; Thomas, Les "petroleuses, " p p . 141-52; Thomas, Women In-
cendiaries, pp. 1 1 9 - 3 2.
25. Malon, La troisieme defaite, pp. 273-74; Thomas, Women Incendiaries, p. 119;
Thomas, I^s "petroleuses, "p. 141.
26. Andre Leo, Lafemme et les moeurs: Liberie ou monarchie, (Paris, 186g), pp. 1 3 0 - 3 1 .
27. Ibid., pp. 138, 140, 13g, 150-56.
28. Maitron and Egrot, Dictionnaire biographique 5:52. Maitron says Leo f o u n d e d La
Sociale with M m e j a c l a r d . Jules L e m o n n y e r {Lesjournaux de Paris pendant la Commune: Re-
vue bibliographique complete de la presse parisienne du ig mars au 2 7 mai [Paris: J. Lemon-
nyer, 1 8 7 1 ] , p . 72) says LaSociale was created by Vermesch and the o t h e r editors of Pfre
Duchene.
2g. Andre Leo and Benoit Malon wrote a manifesto addressed to the "travailleurs des
campagnes" in March, which was disUibuted to the countryside b u t n o t published in
Parisian newspapers until the middle of May. They were convinced that the C o m m u n e
could n o t survive if it did n o t counteract the false p r o p a g a n d a p r o d u c e d by Versailles
and show the peasants that the revolution was for t h e m too and n o t just for Parisians.
"Aux Travailleurs des Campagnes," reprinted in Lanjalley and Corriez, Histoire de la rkio-
lution, pp. 248-50. Leo repeated this point in h e r address to the International Congress
for Peace in Lausanne, Switzerland, S e p t e m b e r 27, 1871, published as La guerre sociale:
Discours prononce au Congres de la Paix ä Lausanne (1871) (Neuchätel: n.p., 1871).
30. Andre Leo, "Toutes avec tous," Sociale, April 12, 1871. Also printed in Commune,
April 14, 1871.
31. Ibid.
32. Ibid.
33. Ibid.
34. Andre Leo, "Les soldats de l'idee," Sociale, April 28, 1871.
35. Andre Leo, "Aventures d e neuf ambulancieres a la r e c h e r c h e d ' u n poste d e
devouement," Sociale, May 6, 1871.
36. Ibid.
37. Leo, "La revolution sans la f e m m e , " Sociale, May 8, 1871.
38. Ibid.
39- Ibid.
40. Ibid.
41. Louis Rossel, Lettre ä Citoyen [ v/V] Andre Leo," and subsequent a n n o u n c e m e n t ,
Sociale May 7, 1871. Rossel, an army officer, was delegate of war for only the first nine
days of May. H e resigned o n the ninth. T h e C o m m u n e wanted to arrest him for what it
saw as his betrayal of the revolution when h e resigned, b u t it failed to find him. Versailles
f o u n d him, tried him, and executed him for his participation in the C o m m u n e .
42. Leo, "La revolution sans la femme"; Andre Leo, "Lettre ä Citoyen Rossel, delegue
ä la guerre," Sociale, May g, 1871.
43- Leo, "Lettre ä Citoyen Rossel."
44. Ibid.
45- Leo, "La revolution sans la f e m m e . "
46. Leo, "Lettre ä Citoyen Rossel."
47- Leo, "Toutes avec tous."
48. Leo, "Neuf ambulancieres."
49- Leo, "Toutes avec tous."
25° Notes to Pages 30—36
50. Blanchecotte, Tablettes d'unefemme, April 22, 1871, p. 104.

51. Ibid., April 14-25, pp. 75-113.
52. Ibid., March ig, p. 7.
53. Ibid., April 8, p. 50.
54. Ibid., May 3, p. 129.
55. Ibid., April 5, pp. 42-43, May 23, p. 25g.
56. Ibid., April 7, p. 47.
57. Ibid., April 12, p. 60.
58. Ibid., April 13, p. 62.
5g. Ibid.
60. Ibid., April 6, pp. 44-45.
61. Ibid., April 12, p. 5g.
62. Ibid., May 6, pp. 133-36.
63. Ibid., April 5, pp. 42-43.
64. Ibid., May 6, p. 137.
65. Ibid., pp. 136-37.
66. Ibid., p. 137.
67. Ibid., April 5, p. 42.
68. Ibid., May 3, p. 130.
6g. Ibid., May 8, p. 140.
70. Ibid., May 26, pp. 2g2-g3- Blanchecotte was right to be incredulous in the case
of the petroleuses.
71. Ibid., May 8, p. 140.
72. Ibid., May 24, p. 265.
73. Ibid., June 17, p. 352. This was not an exclusively female reaction. Bourgeois
men also found it painful to watch the convoys of prisoners and the crowds that taunt-
ed them.
74. Ibid., p. vii.
75. Ibid., p. viii.
76. Mazade, Lettres. To create a coherent narrative, Alexandre, who edited the vol-
ume, interspersed the letters with his own and other conservative descriptions of the
Commune.
77. Ibid., Celine to Alexandre, April 6, 1871, p. 59g.
78. Journal Officiel, April 5, 1871; Edwards, The Paris Commune, p. 222.
7g. Mazade, Lettres, April 5, 1871, pp. 5g6-g7. Alexandre reports on Celine's letter
but does not print it. His account is not addressed to anyone and appears, perhaps, to
be from a diary.
80. Ibid., Celine to Alexandre, April 6, 1871, pp. 598-99.
81. Ibid., Mme V. Pillon-Dufresnes to Victor Pillon-Dufresnes, April 26, 1871, p. 647.
82. Ibid., Celine to Alexandre, April 12, 1871, p. 608.
83. Ibid., Celine to Alexandre, April 18, 1871, pp. 618-ig. Edouard was apparently
concerned that she might not be allowed to return if she left Paris again.
84. Ibid., Celine to Alexandre, April 18, 1871, pp. 618-ig.
85. Ibid., Celine to Alexandre, April 24, 1871, p. 63g.
86. Ibid., Alexandre to Victor Pillon-Dufresnes, April 26, 1871, p. 644.
88. Ibid., Alexandre to Celine, April 2g, 1871, p. 648.
8g. Ibid., Celine to Alexandre (Poste restante, Le Quesnoy), April 27, 1871, p. 650.
go. Ibid., Mme V. Pillon-Dufresnes to Victor Pillon-Dufresnes, April 27, 1871, p. 652;
Roger L. Williams, The French Revolution of 1870—1871 (New York: Norton, ig6g),p. 13
Notes 25 1
In fact, little pillaging occurred, and the furnishings of requisitioned dwellings were
stored and protected by the Commune.
91. Mazade, Lettres, Alexandre to Celine, April 18 (p. 619), 19 (p. 621), 1871.
92. Ibid., Alexandre to Celine, April 29, 1871, p. 648. Either this letter is out of or-
der in the correspondence or its date is a typographical error since it appears before
letters dated April 27.
93. Ibid., Celine to Alexandre, April 20, 1871, pp. 626-27. Celine thought the com-
missaire seemed sympathetic to her when she told him that the lack of silk that she was
sending could cut off the work of the entire population of a village. But he responded
that "In such a moment no one ought to work, that each ought to be defending the
paysl!"
96. Ibid., Alexandre to M. C. Amiard-Fromentin, May 12, 1871, p. 666.
97. Ibid., Celine to Alexandre, April 18, 1871, pp. 618-19.
gg. M. Pillon, pere, to his children, May 13, 1871, p. 667, emphasis added.
101. Ibid., Celine to A. M. Brent, May 30, 1871, p. 686.
102. Ibid., Berthe Amiard-Fromentin to M. Eugene Fromentin, May 29, 1871, p. 687.
103. Bingham, Recollections of Paris 2:121.
104. Gaston Cerfbeer, "Une nuit de la semaine sanglante," La Revue Hebdomadaire,
May 23, 1903, p. 423.
105. Du Camp, Les convulsions, 2:29g.
106. Smith, Ladies of the Leisure Class, esp. p. 53.
107. Other examples include Elizabeth Dmitrieff and Olympe de Gouges. Thomas,
Louise Michel, pp. 13-14; Thomas, Les "petroleuses," p. 103; Joan Wallach Scott, "'A
Woman Who Has Only Paradoxes to Offer': Olympe de Gouges Claims Rights for
Women," in Rebel Daughters: Women and the French Revolution, ed. Sara E. Melzer and
Leslie W. Rabine (New York: Oxford University Press, igg2), pp. 107-8.
108. For biographical information on Louise Michel, see Louise Michel, Memoires
(1886; rpt. Paris: Maspero, 1979); Thomas, Louise Michel; Louise Michel, The Red Virgin:
Memoirs of Louise Michel, ed. and trans. Bullitt Lowry and Elizabeth Ellington Gunter
(University: University of Alabama Press, 1981); Xavier de La Fourniere, Louise Michel:
Matricule 2182 (Paris: Perrin, 1986); Marie Marmo Mullaney, "Sexual Politics in the Ca-
reer and Legend of Louise Michel," Signs 75 (iggo):300-322; Lepelletier, Histoire de la
Commune 1:40i~5.
log. Michel, Memoires, p. 130; Thomas, Louise Michel, pp. 65-70.
110. Michel, La Commune, p. 156; Thomas, Louise Michel, p. 70.
111. The Montmartre Vigilance Committees held nightly meetings, provided food
and shelter for people, and searched out what they regarded as the food hoards of "re-
actionaries." Because the men's meeting began one hour after the women's, women like
Louise Michel could join the men's meeting after their own had adjourned. Michel, Me-
moires, pp. 121-22.
112. Thomas, Louise Michel, pp. 65-82.
113. Goncourt, Journal, January 18, 1871, 2:720.
114. Ibid., January 21, 1871, 2:723.
115. Michel, La Commune, pp. 102-3.
116. Ibid., pp. 163-64.
117. Thomas, Louise Michel, p. g6.
I
118. Ibid., p. 90; Michel, La Commune, p. 188.

119. Vengeur, April 12, 1871 (reprinted from Droit).
121. Leo, "Aventures de neuf ambulancieres."
122. Thomas, Louise Michel, p. 94; Michel, Memoires, p. 166.
123. Thomas, Louise Michel, pp. 100-101; Michel, La Commune, pp. 337-39.
124. Michel, Memoires, p. 134.
125. Ibid., pp. 111, 113. For a fuller analysis of Louise Michel's grief over her moth-
er's death, see Thomas, Louise Michel, pp. 264-76.
126. Michel, The Red Virgin, p. 5g.
128. Ibid., pp. 106, 109. I have assumed this was Louise Michel's decision and not
that of her publisher.
131. Ibid.
132. Ibid., p. 85.
133. Ibid., p. 109.
134. Ibid., p. 121.
135. Ibid., p. 106.
138. Blanchecotte, Tablettes, pp. 44-45.
139. Mazade, Lettres, M. Pillon, pere, to his children, May 13, 1871, p. 667.
140. Michel, Memoires, pp. 274-75.
141. Thomas, Louise Michel, pp. 191-93; Francais, November 23, 1880; Journal du
Soir, November 30, 1880; Lepelletier, Histoire de la Commune 1:401.
142. Lepelletier, Histoire de la Commune 1:401; H o m e , The Fall of Paris, p. 270; Ed-
ward S. Mason, The Paris Commune: An Episode in the History of the Socialist Movement (1930;
rpt. New York: Howard Fertig, 1967), p. 291; Soria, Grande histoire de la Commune 3:128;
Bourgin, La guerre, p. 298.
143. Felicien Champsaur, "Louise Michel," Contemporains, no. 3 (i88o):i-3.
144. Agulhon, Marianne into Battle, p. 142.
145. Ibid.
146. Thomas, Louise Michel, p. 10.
147. For example, see Soria, Grande histoire, 3:128; Bourgin, La guerre, p. 2g8.
148. For example, Andre Falk, "Louise Michel, la vierge rouge," Paris-presse—Intran-
sigeant, November 13-26, 1957; Carl Freiherr von Letetzow, Louise Michel (la vierge
rouge): Eine Charakterskisse (Leipzig: F. Rothbarth, 1906); Andre Lorulot, Louise Michel:
La vierge rouge (Herblay: Editions de l'Idee Libre, 1930); Edith Seilers, 'The Red Virgin
of Montmartre," Fortnightly Review, February 1, 1905, pp. 292-304; Edith Thomas,
"Louise Michel, la vierge rouge," Miroirde l'Histoire (April ig58):5og-i 5.
14g. Michel, The Red Virgin.
150. Clovis Hugues, "La muse du peuple: Serenade ä Louise Michel," Intransigeant,
January 15, 1882; Franôise Moser, Une heroine, Louise Michel (Paris: Vigneau, ig47);
Maurice Barres, Mes Cahiers, 1896-1923 (Paris: Plön, 1963), pp. 392-94; Thomas,
Louise Michel, p. 10; Lepelletier, Histoire de la Commune 1:401.
151. Alistair Hörne, The Terrible Year: The Paris Commune, 1871 (New York: Viking,
1971), pp. 116, 99, 98, 84.
152. Thomas, Louise Michel, p. 188.
153. Ibid., p. 189.
Notes 253
5. Les Petroleuses
1. Tombs, War against Paris, pp. 119, 171-93. The first executions of prisoners by
Versailles soldiers during the semaine sanglante took place on May 22.
2. Charles Delescluze, "Au peuple de ParisJournal Officiel, May 22, 1871, reprint-
ed in Lanjalley and Corriez, Histoire de la revolution, pp. 522-2(5.
3. Lanjalley and Corriez, Histoire de la rkiolution, p. 524.
4. For discussion of the barricades as a defensive system, see Lepelletier, Histoire de
la Commune3:375-77.
5. Mark Traugott, "Barricades as Repertoire: Continuities and Discontinuities in
the History of French Contention," in Repertoires and Cycles of Collective Action, ed. Trau-
gott (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1995), p. 51.
6. See the forty photographs in Braire, Sur les traces des communards.
7. Archibald Forbes, "What I Saw of the Paris Commune," Century (Illustrated) Mag-
azine 44 (i8g2):8i5; Daily News, May 26, 1871 (dateline: Paris, Tuesday [May 23]),
p. 5; Mendes, Les 73 journees, p. 2g6.
8. Goncourt, Journal, May 22, 1871, 2:805; Mendes, Les 73 journees, p. 295.
9. Blanchecotte, Tablettes, pp. 257-59.
10. Ibid., pp. 265-66.
11. Tribun du Peuple, May 24, 1871.
12. Vengeur, May 24, 1871, p. 2.
13. Journal Officiel, May 24, 1871, p. 2.
14. In addition to the examples I give, see Lanjalley and Corriez, Histoire de la rkio-
lution, p. 524; Lepelletier, Histoire de la Commune 3:375; Malon, La troisieme defaite,
pp. 400-401.
15. Blanchecotte, Tablettes, pp. 266, 279-80.
16. Thomas, Louise Michel, pp. g7-ioo; Michel, La Commune, p. 265; Michel,
Memoires, pp. 267-68. Lissagaray, Histoire de la Commune, pp. 324-25, reported that "a
detachment of twenty-five women, under the conduct of citoyennes Dimitrieff and
Louise Michel" helped defend the barricades in Montmartre. Michel, La Commune,
pp. 303-10.
17. As the Versailles forces moved resolutely forward, Elizabeth Dmitrieff issued an
appeal to the Women's Committee of the Eleventh Arrondissement: "At this moment,
the supreme battle has been joined in the last arrondissements held by the insurrec-
tion. . . . Assemble ALL THE WOMEN and the committee itself, and come immediately TO
THE BARRICADES." Citoyenne E. Dmitri[eff], "Appel Aux Femmes," reprinted in
Claretie, Histoire de la revolution, p. 703.
18. Elizabeth Dmitrieff, Nathalie Lemel, Malvina Poulain, Blanche Lefebvre, and
Beatrix Excoffons were among the women who defended the place Blanche. Andre Leo
was at Batignolles. Michel, La Commune, p. 305; Thomas, Michel, p. gg; Lissagaray, His-
toire de la Commune, pp. 327, 339; Lissagaray, Les huit journees, p. 63.
20. Ibid., p. 353.
21. Commissaire, Memoires et souvenirs 2:374-75.
2 2. Louis Jezierski, La batailk des sept jours, quoted in Vizetelly, My Adventures, p. 316.
23. Forbes, "What I Saw," p. 56.
26. Ibid., pp. 328-29.
27. The hostages had been held in the Prefecture of Police until that building was
abandoned on May 22. At that point, they were transferred to La Roquette.
28. Lissagaray, Hisloire de la Commune, pp. 343-44; Edwards, Paris Commune,

PP- 3^9~3°-
29. Jules Valles, The Insurrectionist, trans. Sandy Petrey (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Pren-
tice-Hall, 1971), pp. 212-16; Lissagaray, La Commune, pp. 363-64; Edwards, The Paris
Commune, pp. 336-37; Jellinek, The Paris Commune, pp. 333-36, 348-50, 358-60.
30. Jellinek, The Paris Commune, pp. 329-30.
31. Lissagaray, Hisloire de la Commune, p. 35g.
32. T h e Versailles troops e x a m i n e d m e n ' s hands for signs of dirt and powder that
would indicate they h a d participated in the battle, and their clothing for signs that Na-
tional Guard insignia h a d b e e n r i p p e d off.
33. See Tombs, The War against Paris, pp. 166-93, for an account of the t e r r o r insti-
tuted by the army d u r i n g and after the week of fighting.
35. Daily News, Friday, May 26, 1871 (dateline: Paris, Tuesday, May 23), p. 5. Forbes
is identifiable as the c o r r e s p o n d e n t because the text parallels his later account of the
same events. See Forbes, "What I Saw."
36. Lissagaray, Hisloire de la Commune, pp. 320-2 1.
37. Blanchecotte, Tablettes, May 24, 1871, p. 277.
38. Daily News, May 26, 1871 (dateline: Paris, May 23), p. 5.
39- E d m o n d d e Goncourt, Paris under Siege, 1870-1871: From the Goncourt Journal,
ed. and trans. George J. Becker (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 196g), May 25, 1871,
pp. 304-5; Goncourt, Journal 2:81 2-13.
40. See Bruhat, Dautry, and Tersen, La Commune, p. 28g; Lissagaray, Histoire de la
Commune, pp. 3 7 0 - 8 1 ; Edwards, The Paris Commune, p. 346; Tombs, War against Paris,
pp. 188-g 1; Maitron and Egrot, Dictionnaire biographique4:82. An additional 38,000 pris-
oners were m a r c h e d to Versailles and imprisoned.
41. Paul A. Gagnon, France since 178g, revised edition (New York: H a r p e r and Row,
1964), pp. 118, 154-55.
42. New York Tribune, J u n e 1 (dateline: Paris, May 31), p. 1; June 10, 1871, p. 1.
43. New York Herald, May 25, 1871 (dateline: St. Denis, May 24), p. 7.
44. Daily News, May 26, 1871 (dateline: Paris, May 22), p. 6.
45. New York Times, May 27 (dateline: May 25), p. 1; May 2g, 1871 (dateline: May 28),
p. 1.
46. Standard, J u n e 1 (dateline: Paris, May 30), p. 5; J u n e 5 (dateline: Paris, J u n e 2),
p. 5; J u n e 7, 1871 (dateline: Paris, June 5, evening), p. 5.
47. Vengeur, May 24, 1871, p. 2; Journal Officiel, May 24, 1871, p. 2.
48. Mendes, Les 73 journees, p. 2g5. This scene o c c u r r e d on May 22, the first m o r n -
ing of the invasion.
4g. Vizetelly, My Adventures, p. 316.
50. Forbes, "What I Saw," p. 56.
52. Lissagaray, Histoire de la Commune, pp. 368, 353.
53. Commissaire, Memoires et souvenirs 2:374-75.
54. For accounts of the causes of the fires, see Jellinek, The Paris Commune,
PP- 3 3 1 _ 3 2 ; Tombs, The War against Paris, p. 152; H o m e , The Fall of Paris, pp. 3 9 0 - 9 1 ;
Edwards, The Paris Commune, pp. 323-28.
55. Gibson, Paris during the Commune, May 24, 1871, p. 263. Gibson's letters were
originally published in the Watchman.
56. Daily News, May 26, 1871 (dateline: Paris, May 24); New York Times, May 26, 1871
(dateline: Paris, May 24, night).
Notes 255
57. "What an American Girl Saw of the Commune," Century (Illustrated) Magazine, 45
(n.s. 23) (November i8g2):66.
58. Cerfbeer, "Une nuit de la semaine sanglante," p. 421.
60. Standard, May 27, 1871 (dateiine: Versailles, May 24, 1:00 P.M.).
61. Ibid., June 1, 1871 (dateiine: Paris, May 30), p. 5; also see Times, May 26, 1871
(dateiine: Versailles, Thursday night, May 25), p. 5.
62. Times, May 25, 1871, editorial, p. 9.
63. Standard, May 27, 1871, editorial, p. 4.
64. New York Herald, May 31, 1871, editorial, p. 6.
65. Mazade, Lettres et Notes Intimes, May 30 (p. 686), May 29 (p. 687), 1871.
66. Even the most conservative historians no longer credit the rumor of the
petroleuses. See, for instance, Mason, The Paris Commune, 281-82; Home, The Fall of
Paris, 391-93. For the similar views of a more liberal historian, see Edwards, The Paris
Commune, pp. 322—27.
67. Assemblee Nationale, sitting of May 24, 1871, reported in Caulois, May 25, 1871,
2d edition, p. 1. Also reported in Times, May 25, 1871, p. 5.
68. Times, May 25, 1871, editorial, p. g.
6g. Figaro, May 31, 1871.
70. New York Herald, June 4, 1871, editorial, p. 6.
71. Times, Friday, May 26, 1871, p. 5, emphasis added.
72. Monde Illustre, J u n e 3, 1871, p. 343.
73. Washburne, Recollections 2:223.
74. Wickham Hoffman, Camp, Court, and Siege (New York: Harper and Bros., 1877),
p. 283. William Gibson also recorded the "information" about the fire fighters as well
as about the women incendiaries in his journal on May 25, 1871. Gibson, Paris during
the Commune, p. 285.
75. See, for instance, the reports in Joanna Richardson, ed., Paris under Siege: A Jour-
nal of the Events of 1870—1871 Kept by Contemporaries and Translated and Presented by Joan-
na Richardson (London: Folio Society, ig82), pp. i8o-g8.
76. Washburne, Recollections 2:155. One of the most amazing aspects of Washburne's
account of the petroleuses is that it appears in a memoir rather than in an unedited
or unpublished diary. By the time Washburne's memoirs were published in 1887,
many, including Colonel Hoffman, no longer believed the rumors. Either time had
done nothing to alter Washburne's belief in the rumors, or his notes and letters were
published virtually unedited. For Hoffman's views, see his Camp, Court, and Siege,
pp. 282-83.
77. Caulois, May 28 (p. 28), 2g (p. 1), 1871. The story of the incendiary boxes was
repeated on May 2g.
78. Chastel, letter, May 24, 1871, quoted in Gibson, Paris duringthe Commune, p. 283.
7g. Washburne, Recollections 2:222.
80. Ibid., 2:222-23. Washburne's account of the amount of money paid to the
petroleuses differs from that of Le Caulois.
81. Hoffman, Camp, Court, and Siege, p. 281; Washburne, Recollections 2:155. Hoff-
man reported six deaths; Washburne, eight.
82. Georges Renard, "Mes Souvenirs, 1870-1871," La Revolution de 1848 et les revo-
lutions du XIXe siecle, 1830, 1848, 1870 28 ( i g 3 i ) : 7 8 .
83. Goncourt, Journal 2:815.
84. Quoted in Gibson, Paris during the Commune, p. 2go. The Versailles government
took 650 children aged sixteen or under prisoner. The number killed in the streets of
Paris or on the forced marches from Paris to Versailles is unknown. See Appert, Rapport
d'ensemble, p. 180.
85. Journal des Debats, May 30, 1871.
86. Times, May 27, 1871, p. 5; Edwin Child, letter, May 28, 1871, published in
Richardson, Paris under Siege, p. 197.
87. Times, May 26 (dateline: May 23), p. 12, May 29, 1871 (dateline: Paris, Thursday,
May 25), pp. 9-10; Goncourt, Journal, May 26, 1871, 2:814.
88. Times, May 26, 1871 (dateline: Versailles, May 23), p. 12; Daily News, May 26, 1871
(dateline: Paris, Wednesday, May 24), p. 6.
89. Daily News, May 26, 1871 (dateline: Paris, Wednesday, May 24), p. 6.
90. Chastel, letter, May 28, 1871, quoted in Gibson, Paris during the Commune, p. 290.
91. Bingham, Recollections of Paris 2:121.
92. Times, May 27, 1871, p. 5.
93. Nerv York Tribune, June 7, 1871, p. 2.
94. Gaulois, April 5, 1871, p. 1.
95. Times, May 26, 1871, p. 12; Goncourt, Journal, May 28, 1871, 2:816;
Blanchecotte, Tablettes, June 17, 1871, p. 352.
96. Goncourt, Journal, May 26, 1871, p. 814.
97. Child, letter, in Richardson, Paris under Siege, p. 197.
98. Paris-Journal, Wednesday, May 31, 1871, quoted in Mason, The Paris Commune,
p. 291. Only the conservative newspapers were still publishing at this point.
99. Gibson, Paris during the Commune, May 27, 1871, p. 270.
100. Bingham, Recollections 2:124.
101. Reported by Vizetelly, My Adventures, p. 316.
102. New York Tribune, May 26, 1871, p. 1.
103. Figaro, June 2, 1871, p. 1.
104. Goncourt, Journal 2:814.
105. Figaro, June 1, 1871, p. 1.
106. Times, May 29, 1871 (dateline: Paris, May 25), p. 10.
107. Ibid., May 26, 1871 (dateline: Versailles, May 23), p. 12.
108. Goncourt, Journal, May 26, 1871, 2:815. The African infantrymen (chasseurs
d'Afrique) Goncourt mentions are probably Zouaves, an elite infantry of North African
origins recruited by the French. Tombs, War against Paris, p. xii.
109. Francisque Sarcey, "Les alienistes," Gaulois, May 28, 1871, p. 1.
110. Francisque Sarcey, Gaulois,]\ine 13, 1871.
111. The New York Herald, May 28, 1871, p. 7.
113. New York Tribune, June 7, 1871, p. 2.
114. "Le räle des petroleuses," Gaulois, June 14, 1871, p. 2.
115. Times, May 29, 1871, editorial, p. 9.
116. Standard, May 30, 1871, editorial, p. 4.
117. New YorkHerald, May 28, 1871, editorial, p. 7.
118. Jules Bergeret, Le dix-huit mars, p. 25.
119. Ibid., p. 25.
120. Sarcey, "Les alienistes."
121. Jean-Baptiste Milliere, a Parisian deputy to the National Assembly who had con-
demned Versailles for fighting a civil war against Paris but had not been involved in the
Commune, was forced to kneel on the steps of the Pantheon, then shot. Edwards, The
Paris Commune, p. 341; Lissagaray, Histoire de la Commune, pp. 492-94.
122. Child, letter, in Richardson, Paris under Siege, p. 197.
123. Times, May 27, 1871, p. 5.
Notes 257
124. Bergeret, Le dix-huit mars, p. 24.

125. Georges Jeanneret, Pans pendant la Commune rhjolutionnaire de 7/ (1871; rpt.
Paris: Editions d'Histoire Sociale, 1968), p. 250.
1 26. Lissagaray, Histoire de la Commune, p. 378.
128. Ibid., 2:816.
129. Times, May 27, 1871.
130. Forbes, "What I Saw of the Paris Commune," p. 54; Daily News (London), May
26, 1871, p. 5. Articles in the Daily News, as was generally the case in this era, were un-
signed. The identities of the correspondents were well known in journalistic circles,
however, and Forbes notes in his 1892 article that he went to Paris as the Daily News's
reporter. The wording of the 1871 and 1892 articles is identical.
131. Cerfbeer, "Une nuit," p. 423.
132. Du Camp, Les convulsions 2:299.
133. A variety of liberal and conservative men and at least one woman, Augustine-
Melvine Blanchecotte, criticized the bourgeoises' attacks on prisoners from the time the
first captured guardsmen were taken to Versailles in early April.
134. New York Tribune, May 31, 1871, p. 1.
135. For a more complete analysis of the role of female nudity in art, see Warner,
Monuments and Maidens; and Hollander, Seeing through Clothes. During this period of war
and civil war, it was common for artists to depict both France and Paris as semiclad god-
desses being raped or stabbed in the back by evil men. For examples, see Leith, "The
War of Images," p. 111.
136. Goncourt, Journal, May 26, 1871,2:815.
137. The Bibliotheque Nationale's collection of drawings from the period of the
Commune contains many representations of petroleuses, all of whom are depicted in
skirts or dresses.
138. See, for instance, Coventry Patmore, The Angel in the House, (1854-56; rpt. Lon-
don: G. Bell and Sons, 1920), excerpted in Hellerstein, Hume, and Offen, Victorian
Women, pp. 134-40:
To the sweet folly of the dove,

She joins the cunning of the snake,
To rivet and exalt his love;
Her mode of candour is deceit;
And what she thinks from what she'll say,
(Although I'll never call her cheat,)
Lies far as Scotland from Cathay.
6. Women on Trial
1. Memoirs that contain no references to the trials include Mendes, Les 73 journees-,
Blanchecotte, Tablettes d'unefemme; and Goncourt, Journal. For early histories that con-
tain no reference or only brief mention, see Claretie, Histoire de la rmolution, pp. 723-28;
Malon, La troisieme defaite, none; Lanjalley and Corriez, Histoire de la rmolution, none. Lis-
sagaray devoted a chapter to the trials and executions of Communards. See Lissagaray,
Histoire de la Commune, pp. 409-27.
Later histories are often almost as brief. Those who wrote from a pro-Commune per-
spective generally included longer accounts of the trial than pro-Versailles writers did.
For pro-Commune historians, see Jellinek, The Paris Commune, pp. 373-86; Georges
Laronze, Histoire de la Commune de 1871 d'apres des documents et des souvenirs inedits (Paris:
Payot, 1928), pp. 575-671; Andre Decoufle, La Commune de Paris (1871): Revolution pop-
ulaire et pouvoir revolutionnaire (Paris: Cujas, 1969), none; Bruhat, Dautry, and Tersen,
La Commune de 1871, pp. 292-94; Bourgin, La guerre, pp. 399-408; Lepelletier, Histoire
de la Commune, none. For neutral but Commune-leaning historians, see Edwards, The
Paris Commune, pp. 346-50; Jacques Rougerie, Proces des Communards (Paris: Collection
Archives, 1967). For anti-Commune historians, see Mason, The Paris Commune, pp. 288,
291-92; Home, The Fall of Paris, pp. 422-26.
2. J o h n Knox, The First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women
(1558; rpt. New York, AMS Press, 1967).
3. Appert, Rapport d'ensemble; Tombs, The War against Paris, pp. 1 9 1 - 9 2 , 2 1 9 .
4. Jellinek, The Paris Commune, p. 366. For general descriptions of prison condi-
tions, see "A Visit to Satory," Standard, May 30, 1871 (dateline: May 28), p. 5; Lissagaray,
Histoire de la Commune, pp. 385-88, 395-98; Edwards, The Paris Commune, pp. 346-48;
Jellinek, The Paris Commune, pp. 366-68. For accounts by prisoners, see Elisee Reclus,
La Commune de Paris aujour lejour (Paris: Schleicher freres, 1908); Paul Ferrat, quoted
in Jellinek, The Paris Commune, p. 367; Michel, Memoires, pp. 133-36; Mme C. Hardouin,
La detenue de Versailles en 1871 (Paris: author, 1879), pp. 26-45; Malon, La troisieme de-
faitepp. 490-502.
5. Lissagaray, Histoire de la Commune, pp. 385—86.
6. Ibid., p. 386; Jellinek, The Paris Commune, p. 366.
7. Jellinek, The Paris Commune, p. 367.
8. Ibid., p. 367; Lissagaray, Histoire de la Commune, p. 386.
g. Account of the unnamed wife of a chef de legion, in Lissagaray, Histoire de la Com-
mune, pp. 386-87.
10. Ibid., p. 387; Fetridge, Rise and Fall of the Paris Commune, pp. 487-89. Fetridge
quotes an unnamed "noted journalist." Michel, Memoires, p. 133.
12. "A Visit to Satory," Standard, May 30, 1871 (dateline: May 28), p. 5. Benoit Mal-
on includes excerpts from other press accounts of prison conditions in La troisieme de-
faite, pp. 4g0-503-
13. "A Visit to Satory."
14. New York Times, May 31, 1871 (dateline: Versailles, May 29), p. 1.
15. New York Tribune, J u n e 10, 1871, p. 1.
16. Michel, Memoires, pp. 134-35.
17. Jan Goldstein, Console and Classify: The French Psychiatric Profession in the Nineteenth
Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 242, 264, 154, 232-33. See
pp. 240-75 for an analysis of the tenets and popularity of physiology in nineteenth-cen-
tury France.
18. Standard, May 30, 1871, p. 5.
ig. Ibid.
20. Quoted in Fetridge, Rise and Fall, p. 48g.
21. Standard, May 30, 1871, p. 5.
22. Quoted in Fetridge, Rise and Fall, pp. 491 -93.
23. In this regard the trials conformed to nineteenth-century notions of female crim-
inality. See Patricia O'Brien, The Promise ofPunishment: Prisons in Nineteenth-Century France
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), pp. 64-70. O'Brien maintains that nine-
teenth-century criminologists regarded women as biologically destined for marriage
Notes 259
and motherhood. "Those who tried to overturn this [destiny] were likely to become
criminals" (p. 67).
24. Quoted in Fetridge, Rise and Fall, pp. 491-93.
25. Edouard Dangin, "Les prisonnieres," Gaulois, June 28, 1871, p. 2.
26. Gazette des Tribunaux, September 6, 1871, p. 508.
27. Francisque Sarcey, "Les alienistes," Gaulois, May 28, 1871, p. 1.
28. Ibid. This was a common nineteenth-century assumption. See O'Brien, Promise
of Punishment, pp. 64-69.
29. Monde Illustre, May 20, 1871, p. 312.
30. Francis Marnard, "La femme libre," Figaro, June 2, 1871, p. 1.
31. The French word is libre, which is difficult to translate because of its multiple
meanings in English. I have chosen to translate it with the contemporary feminist term
"liberated," which has similar connotations.
32. Marnard, "La femme libre."
33. Ibid. At this time, Louise Michel was not famous enough to make Marnard's list
of undesirable women, even though she fit into his category of institutrices declassees.
34. Ibid.
35. He was like the men whose writings would intrigue Virginia Woolf in 1929 when
she looked up "woman" in the card catalog of the British Museum. Virginia Woolf, 4
Room of One's Own (1929; rpt. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1957), pp. 26-27.
36. Marnard, "La femme libre." Recognizing that men might refuse to submit to
their wives, Le Figaro declared that women's role then was to pray "in silence to the God
who judges and restores."
37. AHG, Conseil de Guerre Dossiers, 1871. Dossiers were compiled for all prison-
ers, but only those of the women and men who were convicted still exist in the archives.
38. Appert, Rapport d'ensemble, pp. 219, 227.
39. Ibid., p. 246.
40. Ibid., p. 214.
41. Ibid., p. 215.
42. See, for instance, Blanchecotte, Tablettes, pp. 257-59; Mendes, Les 73 journees,
p. 296; Lepelletier, Histoire de la Commune 3:375; Malon, Troisieme defaite, pp. 400-401;
Lanjalley and Corriez, Histoire de la revolution, p. 524.
43. See, for instance, Monde Illustre, June 1871, p. 343.
44. Appert, Rapport d'ensemble, pp. 222-23.
45. Figaro, September 6, 1871, p. 3.
46. Ibid.
47. Ibid. The second day, there were fewer spectators and those who were there were
mostly women. Figaro, September 7, 1871, p. 3.
48. Leonce Dupont, La Commune et ses auxiliaires devant la justice (Paris: Didier, 1871),
PP- 2 3 4 - 3 7 -
49. Figaro, August 8, 1871, p. 2.
52. Dupont, La Commune, pp. 234-36.
53. Figaro, September 7, 1871, p. 3.
54. Ibid.
55. AHG, Conseil de Guerre Dossiers.
56. The transcript for this and the other trials was published in the Gazette des Tri-
bunaux. For this trial see September 4-5 (pp. 503-4) and 6 (pp. 507-8), 1871.
57. Standard, September 8, 1871 (dateline: September 6), p. 5.
1
260 Notes to Pages 208-2 7
58. A H G Conseil d e G u e r r e Dossiers; Gazette des Tribunaux, S e p t e m b e r 4 - 5 , 1871,

P- 5°3-
59. A H G Conseil d e G u e r r e Dossiers.
60. See Figaro, September, 1871, p. 3; Standard, S e p t e m b e r 8, 1871, p. 5.
62. Figaro, September, 1871, p. 3.
63. A r m a n d Audiganne, Les populations ouvrieres et les industries de la France, 2 vols.
(1860; rpt. New York: B. Franklin, 1970); Julie V. Daubie, La femme pauvre au XIXe siecle
(1866; rpt. Paris: Cöte-femmes, 1992); Jules Michelet, La femme, 5 th ed. (Paris: C a l m a n n
Levy, 1885); Simon, L'ouvriere; Louise A. Tilly and J o a n W. Scott, Women, Work, and Fam-
ily (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1978); L e n a r d R. Berlanstein, The Working
People of Paris, 1871-1914 (Baltimore: J o h n s H o p k i n s University Press, 1984); J o a n W.
Scott, '"L'ouvriere! Mot impie, sordide . . .': Women Workers in the Discourse of French
Political Economy, 1840-1860," in h e r Gender and the Politics of History, pp. 139-63; Gul-
lickson, " W o m a n h o o d and M o t h e r h o o d , " pp. 206-32.
64. AHG, Conseil d e G u e r r e Dossiers.
65. Figaro, S e p t e m b e r 7, 1871, p. 3.
66. Ibid.
67. Ibid. Writing a b o u t the trial of the five petroleuses and b e f o r e Louise Michel's
trial, Leonce D u p o n t r e f e r r e d to h e r as M a d a m e Michel and "cette m e r e Michel," an in-
dication that h e knew very little a b o u t her. Dupont, La Commune, p. 245.
68. Transcripts of Louise Michel's trial can be f o u n d in Gazette des Tribunaux, De-
cember 17, 1871, p. 862; Figaro, D e c e m b e r 18, 1871, p. 3; Louise Michel, Oevant le 6e
Conseil de Guerre; son arrestation par elle-meme dans une lettre au Citoyen Paysant (Paris: Nou-
velle Association Ouvriere, 1880); Michel, Memoires, pp. 3 1 3 - 2 1 . All the following quo-
tations can b e f o u n d in all these sources.
71. Mullaney, "Sexual Politics," p. 314.
72. Standard, D e c e m b e r ig, 1871, p. 5.
73. Gazette des Tribunaux, D e c e m b e r 17, 1871, p. 862.
74. Ibid., Figaro, D e c e m b e r 18, 1871, p. 3.
75. Gazette des Tribunaux, D e c e m b e r 17, 1871, p. 862; Figaro, D e c e m b e r 18, 1871,
p. 3; Standard, D e c e m b e r 19, 1871, p. 5.
76. Ibid.
77. Warner, Joan of Arc, pp. 139-61, 170-73. Unlike Michel, George Sand and
Madeleine Pelletier wore m e n ' s clothing, at least o n occasion.
7g. Michel, Memoires, p. 321.
81. Figaro, D e c e m b e r 18, 1871, p. 3.
82. Despite their best efforts, the government's investigators f o u n d n o evidence of
sexual activity on h e r part. She a p p e a r e d to be a celibataire in all senses of the word. AHG,
Conseil de G u e r r e Dossier, Louise Michel.
83. Standard, D e c e m b e r 19, 1871, p. 5.
84. Ibid.
85. Ibid.
86. Bruhat, Dautry, and Tersen, La Commune de 1871, p. 441.
87. Da Costa includes a transcript of his trial and an account of his private conver-
sations with his lawyer in La Commune vecue 3:227-39.
88. T h e French t e r m is pederastie.
Notes 2 6 1
89. T. J. Clark, The Painting of Modern Life (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1984), pp. 204-14; Boime, Art and the French Commune, pp. 115-20.
go. Da Costa, La Commune vecue 3:228.
91. A cursory two-minute examination by an aide-major confirmed the judge's accu-
sation. Gatineau demanded a second examination by a physician from the military hos-
pital at Versailles. Da Costa reported that the doctor "asked questions and examined
him." This examination "proved" Da Costa was not a homosexual. Da Costa, La Com-
mune vecue 3:236—3g.
92. Ibid., 3:239, 245.
Ibid
93- -> 3 : 232-
94. Lissagaray, who followed the press accounts of the trials closely, obliquely re-
ferred to the accusation against Da Costa but made no reference to any other attacks
on the men's sexuality. "The squalid imagination of some soldiers . . . taxed itself to taint
the accused," he declared. Lissagaray, Histoire de la Commune, p. 241. There may be oth-
er accusations of homosexuality in the dossiers compiled on the male prisoners, but
they remain to be revealed.
7. The Unruly Woman and the Revolutionary City

1. Goncourt and Goncourt, Journal, August 21, 1862, 1:1121. A femininist read-
ing of the Goncourts' distress over Rose's deception might see it not as male fear of
women's duplicity but as male fear that women could outwit them, that is, of women's
superiority.
2. Moses, French Feminism in the Nineteenth Century, pp. 151-89.
3. Warner, Monuments and Maidens, pp. 280-81; Warner, Joan of Arc, pp. 198-217;
Kleinbaum, War against the Amazons; Samuel, Amazones; Tyrrell, Amazons; duBois, Cen-
taurs and Amazons; Graves, The Greek Myths.
4. Hollander, Seeing through Clothes, pp. 184-203.
5. Goncourt and Goncourt, Journal, August 16, 21, 1862, pp. 1:1111, 1119.
6. For a discussion of other female representations of French revolutions, see Hertz,
"Medusa's Head."
7. Warner, Monuments and Maidens, p. 37; De Lauretis, Alice Doesn't; Gutwirth Twi-
light of the Goddesses, pp. 255-59.
8. Holt, The Tiger, p. 31.
9. For more on this issue, see Joan W. Scott, "Gender: A Useful Category of Histor-
ical Analysis," in Scott, Gender and the Politics of History, pp. 46-48.
10. See Lederer, Fear of Women, for a psychological exploration of male fear of the
unruly woman.
#
Selected Bibliography
ARCHIVAL AND OFFICIAL SOURCES
Appert, M. le General. Rapport d'ensemble sur les operations de la justice militaire relatives ä
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Archives Historiques de Guerre (AHG)
Ly 7. Rapport sur lesjeunes prevenus de 16 ans et au dessus, compromis dans l'in-
surrection parisienne
Ly 22. Operations judiciaires concernant les femmes: Rapport d'ensemble.
. Rapport sur les conseils de guerre
. Union des Femmes. Statutes
Ly 140. Papers of the Union des Femmes, including membership list, officers,
members of committees
Conseil de Guerre Dossiers:
Femme Bocquin
Marie Augustine Gaboriaud
Josephine Marche or Marchais
Lucie Maris
Louise Michel
Eulalie Papavoine
Elisabeth Retiffe
Leontine Suetens
Archives Nationales (AN)
AB XIX 33g3- Dessins accompagnes de legendes representant des femmes de la
Commune
BB27, 107-9. Fichier des Graces de la Commune
BB 24. Dossiers des Graces
Assemblee Nationale. Enquete parlementaire sur l'insurrection du 18 mars. 3 vols. Ver-
sailles: Cerf, 1872. See especially Vol. 2: Pieces Justificatives. "Du role des femmes
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2 6 3
2 6 4 Selected Bibliography
"Du role des enfants dans l'insurrection" (Rapport du capitaine Guichard), pp.
313-20.
Bibliotheque Historique de la Ville de Paris (BHVP)
F.M. 6347-IX. Caricature collection
F.M. 6347-IX. Premiere liste des femmes prisonnieres ä Versailles
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CONTEMPORARY NEWSPAPERS
General
La Commune
La Gazette des Tribunaux
L'lllustration
Le Monde Illustre
Communard
L'Avant-Garde
Le Cri du Peuple
Le Droit
Le Journal Officiel de la Republique Franfaise
La Mere Duchene
Le Mot d'Ordre
La Sociale
Le Tribun du Peuple
Le Vengeur
Versaillais
Le Figaro
Le Gaulois
Foreign
Daily News (London)
New York Herald
New York Tribune
New York Times
265 Selected Bibliography
Standard, later Evening Standard (London)

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LITERATURE
Dickens, Charles. A Tale of Two Cities. 1859. Rpt. New York: Washington Square Press,
i960.
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Zola, Emile. The Debacle. Translated by Leonard Tancock. London: Penguin, 1972.
•
#
Index
Agulhon, Maurice, 156 Arsac, Joanni d', 49

alcohol, 32, 38, 45, 55, 59, 90, 91,11 2-13, Assi, Adolphe, 59, 204, 23gn6
207, 2341131, 2361191, 23711106. See also Audebrand, Philibert, 66, 111
communards; National Guard
allegorical femalefigures,6, 7, 12, 55, 156, barricades, 21, 31, 57, 59, 72, 86, 100, 105,
219-21, 226, 257ni35 106, 107, 111, 135, 136, 140, 150,
Allix, Jules, 102, 173. See also Amazones de 160-63, 166-68, 220, 225, 253m6;
la Seine/Amazons of the Seine caricatures of defenders, 108-9; con-
Amazones de la Seine/Amazons of the struction and defense of, 130, 161, 176,
Seine, 101-2, 103, 130, 245ngi, 245ng2, 200, 203, 207, 253ni6, 253ni7. See also
2
47nl5° March 18; semaine sanglante
amazons, 4, 9, 74, 85, 98, 101, 104, battalions of women, 104
114-19, 142, 159, 168, 177-78, 189, Belleville, 15, 25, 97, 233ni7, 234n2g
211, 221, 223, 225, 226; amazon war- Belly, Felix, 101-2
riors, 12, 101-3, 158, 224, 225, 226; Bergeret, Jules, 4, 179—80
(Greek) Amazons, 6, 86-87, '67, 189. Bertall, Charles, 72, 92-93, 105-8
See also Jeanne d'Arc Beugnot, Captain, 4, 32, 34, 36, 48, 53,
ambulancieres, 20, 74, 89-96, g7, 111, 132, 2
34n32,235n44
134, 145, 150, 151, 203, 208, 216 Bingham, Dennis Arthur, 72, 79, 100,
amnesty, 21 111-12, 173, 175, 242n63
anticlericalism, 68; and women, 110, 113. Blanchecotte, Melvine-Augustine, 97, 120,
See also churches; priests and nuns 136-41, 145, 147, 153, 157-58, 161-62,
appeals to women, 97, 9g, 121-26, 138 164-65, 174, 201
Appert, M. le General, 50—51, 53, 66, 165, Blanqui, Auguste, 16, 111, 239nio; Blan-
177,202-3 quists, 24on22
armed women, 103, 111, 207. See also bar- bloodthirsty women, 48, 51, 72, 223. See
ricades; unarmed women also crowd
army, 17,58,62, 159. See also fraterniza- bloody week. See semaine sanglante
tion; March 18; semaine sanglante; sol- Bocquin, Lucie, 206-9
diers Boime, Albert, 3, 22gn6
277
278 Index
Bonjean, Bertrand, 67, 163 class: conflict, 1-2, 59, 61-63, 64-65,
bourgeois: fear of working class, 1-2, 57, 123-24; -based judgments, 195-96; war,
58, 61, 65-73; National Guard units, 20; 57. 64
notions of class, 182-83; vengeance of, Clemenceau, Georges, 27-28, 31-32, 34,
173-74. See also bourgeoises; class; gen- 36, 38-40, 45, 48-53, 59, 147-49,
der conceptualizations; 233nio, 235n37, 238ni26
bourgeoises, 5, 12-13; attacks on prisoners, clubs: political, 68-69, 71_72> 74. 109-18,
139, 146-47, 182-83, 18g, 199; as cora- 247m 28, 248n2o; and male observers,
munardes, 177, 199-200; vindictive senti- 111-16. See also churches; orators
ments of, 170. See also Blanchecotte, Commissaire, Sebastien, 4, 104, 162, 167
Melvine-Augustine; Mazade, Celine de Committee of Public Safety, 69, 96, 134,
Bourgin, Georges, 40-42, 50 160
Brocher, Victorine, 92-94 communardes: bourgeois explanation of,
Brogan, D. W., 51 19g, 201; enigma of, 191, 214, 217; hor-
ror stories of, 195; leaders of, 199, 200.
cannons, 15-18, 25-28, 30, 34, 36, 39, 42, See also bourgeoises; Leo, Andre; Michel,
53> 55. S^, 61, 122-23, !6i> 166; and Louise; petroleuses; prisoners; trials
women, 43—44 Commune: crimes of, 63, 65—67, 169-70,
cantinieres, 20, 27, 69-71, 74, 89-96, 216; as drama, 2; elections, 17; evils of,
9°-93> 9 5 - 9 6 . 10
3 - 5> 119. ' 4 5 . ^ 9 . 163; historians and, 2-3, 9-10, 11; histor-
167, 203, 207, 208, 216, 219, 244n66; ical significance of, 2-3, 21-23, 22gn6;
caricatures of, 118-19; uniform of, iconography of, 11; identified with
89-93 women, 38, 51, 74, 218, 225-26; as inspi-
caricature, 10; of France, 75-77, 85; of ration, 2-3; legislation of, 19, 60, 62-65,
men/communards, 65; pro-Commune, 67, 85, 113-14; politics of, 18, 63-65;
83-85, 108-9; of Thiers, 83-84; of radical criticism of, 130, 134; and symbol-
women, 74, 85, 88-90, 90-93, 101-3, ism, 17, 19, 148, 159; values of, 125, 133,
105-6, 108-9, 114_17> 118, 183-89, 136, 24on23; views of, 2-4, 130, 134,
219 137; and women, 126—27, 130-33, 135.
cartridge workers, 79-82 See also Committee of Public Safety; Com-
Central Committee, 17, 32, 48, 57-60, munards; communists
62-63, 234n32, 23gn6, 23gni2; and Communards: conviction rates, 21, 203; as
morality, 60-61 drunkards, 65
Cerfbeer, Gaston, 146, 168, 182 communists, 20, 63-64, 79, 24in62
Champsaur, Felicien, 154 conscription, 67-8, 141
Champseix, Leodile. See Leo, Andre conseils de guerre. See courts martial
Chastel, M., 172-73 contagion theories: contagious hysteria,
Chäteau-Rouge, 31-32, 35-36, 49 214; of the crowd, 53-54; of folly, 177,
Chaudey, Gustave, 163, 216 182, 200; of madness, 199. See alsofolie
Chevalier, Arthur, 34, 42-44 contagieuse
Child, Edwin, 80, 174, 180 Corday, Charlotte, 200
children, 40, 54-55, 176, 178, deaths/exe- Corriez, Paul. See Lanjalley, Paul
cutions of, 162-63, 172-73, 255n84; or- Courbet, Gustave, 6g, 205
phans, 19, 221; as petroleuses, 172; as courts martial, 21, 202. See also trials
prisoners, 255n84; represented as vic- crowd: of March 18, 28-38, 43-48; in after-
tims, 75, 77-79, 81. featowomen noon, 31-33, 37, 55; bloodlust of; 52-53,
churches, 66, 109-10, 143. See also anticler- 55, 238ni4o; as bloodthirsty, 36, 51; as
icalism; priests and nuns Greek chorus, 36, 48; history of, 34; as
civil war, beginning of, 18, 77-78, 137-38 m o b (foule), 32, 44, 51, 52; as
Claretie, Jules, 4, 34, 38, 44, 46-47, 50-53, rabble (canaille), 44; as wild beasts, 36,
104-5, 1 1 2 ° 6 > 208 52; as pathological, 52-55; psychology of,
Index 279
crowd (cont.) executions of prisoners, 165-66, 172-73,

23811128; women in, 30, 34-35, 38, 49, 189, 1 g 1, 194, 195, 199, 211. See also
59, 237m 10 deaths; hostages
explosion, 80-82, cause of, 81-82; See also
Da Costa, Gaston, 4, 34-35, 37-38, 42, cartridge workers
44 _ 47> 49' 53> ar>d homosexuality,
215-17; and pathological crowd, 53; trial federes, 232m 2
of, 206, 214-16, 26ingi, 26ing4 femaleness, 189. See also femininity
Daily News, 34, 57-58, 112-13, 166, 173 femininity, 2, 98-99, 153, 156, 178-79,
Darboy, Monsignor Georges, archbishop, 189, 192, 196-97, 208-9, 212; and na-
19, 21, 67-68, 163 ture, 223; violation of, 167, 189. See also
Daumier, Honore, 75-77, 242n5, 247m50 gender conceptualizations; nature
deaths: of generals, 50-51, 123, 210, feminists, 118, 151, 200-1, 206, 224. See
237m04, 238m 26; impact of, 131-32; also emancipated woman; liberated
number of, 19, 21, 75, 85, 165; rumors woman
about, 49-51, 58; reprisals for, 48, 54-55, femmes fortes, 120-21
163; at Versailles, 194; and women, 36, Ferre, Theophile, 149, 163, 204, 206, 210,
172-73, 242111. See aho children; execu- 211
tions; hostages; prisoners; semaine Fetridge, W. P., 196-97
sanglante; soldiers Figaro, 170, 175, 206, 213
Defarge, Madame, 71. See also tricoteuses fille, 23Öng3. See also prostitutes
Delacroix, Eugene, 54, 77, 85, 167, fires, 20, 159, 160, 164, 168-70, 199;
218-19, 224 causes of, 168, 170-73; and firefighters,
Delescluze, Charles, 83, 160 171, 172, 255n74; preventive measures,
demonstrations of women, 18, 96-99, 171. See also, petroleuses
2
45 n 74- Flourens, Gustave, 16
Deraismes, Maria, 151 folie contagieuse, 177, 182. See also contagion
Dickens, Charles, 71 theories
22 2 nl Fontoulieu, Paul, i o g - i 13, 118
divorce, 111-15, 4> 47 35
Dmietrieff, Elizabeth, 20, 99, 120, 125-27, Forbes, Archibald, 163-65, 2 5 7 n i 3 0
128, 130, 158, 163, 199, 209, 214, Franco-Prussian War, 14-15.75-77- See
248ni5, 248ni7, 248n22, 2 5 i n i o 7 ; and also Prussians
barricades, 253ni6, 253ni7, 2 5 3 n i 8 fraternization, 17, 27, 30—31, 33, 39, 44
doigts prussiques, 102 freemasons, i g
Dombrowski, General Jaroslav, 95, 132, 162 French Revolution (1789), 1,8, ig, 57, 58,
domesticity as prescription, 217 66-73, 123> 126> !33- See also March to
Dreyfus Affair, 21 Versailles; Terror; tricoteuses
Du Camp, Maxime, 4, 64, 111, 116, 146, 182 Friends of Order, 67
Dumas, fils, Alexandre, 4 funeral, 83
Dupont, Leonce, 205-6 furies, 4, 86, 118, 119, 159, 171, 174-76,
178-79, 182, 187, 189, 221, 226; of the
Edwards, Stewart, 3, 40-41, 47 guillotine, 48
1848, 1, 32, 62, 83, 160, 165
1830, 8-9, 160, 165 gamins, 54. See also children
emancipated woman, 200, 206, 213-14, Gaulois, 171-72, 174, 176, 178
217, 224. See also feminists; liberated Gazette des Tribunaux, 212
woman gender conceptualizations, 5, 35, 38,
Engels, Friedrich, 64 55-56. 75. i2i- 2 6, 128, 130-31,
epidemic of madness, 176 134-36. !38, 144. ^ - Ö S . 158, 182-83,
Eve, 5-6, 221, 224 198, 201, 208-9, 2 2 7 ; and caricature, 83;
Excoffons, Beatrix, 97, 110 conventions of, 212; dichotomies of, 77,
28o Index
gender (cont.) Jacobins, 24on2 2

134-35, 223> differences of, 74, 121-25, jackals, 4
134-36, 144, 153, 154, 177; expecta- Jeanne d'Arc, 86-89, 1 0 2 > 154> J89> 212.
tions about, 38, 157; and gender lines, 224-25; and Amazons, 87; caricature of,
59, 70, 97, 124-25, 146, 158; hierarchy, 88-89, 98, 105, 108
135; instability of, 37; inversion of, Jellinek, Frank, 3, 47, 102, 192
141-42; and soldiers, 202-3; a n d roles, Jenneret, Georges, 180
37, 77; and spheres, 144; role of in trials, Jezierski, Louis, 163, 167
198, 204; threats to, 119; women's, 121. Journal Offiael, 59-60, 81, 176
See also femininity; masculinity; nature
Gibson, William, Reverend, 17, 58, 64—67, Kleist, Heinrich von, 86—87
90, 168, 175, 189 Klenck, 219, 222
Gillot, 114
Girard, Eugene, 200, 206 Lairtullier, E., 70
Goncourt, Edmond de, 20, 51, 59, 63, Lanjalley, Paul, 34, 38-40, 49, 83, 97
68-71, 81, 103, 111-12, 148, 161, 165, Lecomte, General Claude, 25, 27-28,
168, 172, 174-76, 180, 187, 238ni25; 30-33, 42-43, 54, 58, 60-61, 77, 149,
Jules de, 2g2n8; Jules and Edmond de, 1, 163, 233mo, 233mg, 235n35, 242ns;
223, 225, 228 death of, 48-51, 237n 106. See also
Government of National Defense (provi- deaths
sional government), 15, 34, 111, 148 Lefebvre, Henri, 40
grisettes, 215,217 Leo, Andre, 20, 95-96, 102-3, 104, 110,
groupe des atoyennes, 123-25, 127-28, 138 120, 128-36, 137, 144, 148, 150, 151,
guillotine, 48, 58, 70-71, 111; and women, 156, 199-200, 209, 214, 24gn28,
70—73. See also tricoteuses 24gn2g
Lepelletier, Edmond, 4, 31, 34-36, 38, 40,
Hachette, Jeanne, 102 42, 44-46, 48
harpies, 48, 86, 178, 189, 226 liberated woman, 199-200. See also emanci-
Haxo, rue, 163. See also hostages pated woman; feminists
hecates, 4, 163, 221, 225 Liberty, 8, 9, 77, 85, 167, 218-19, 224
historians, and the Commune, 9-10, lionesses, 167, 225
10—11,118
Hoffman, Colonel Wickham, 171, 172, Lissagaray, Prosper-Olivier, 4, 34, 35, 3 8 -
2
55 n 76 39, 40, 42, 45, 72-73, 161, 164, 167,
Hollander, Anne, 9 176, 180, 192, 193
homosexuality, 215-17, 26on88, 26ingi, Lix, Frederic, 114, 116—17, 199-200, 211
26mg4 Lullier, Charles, 59, 204, 2 3gn6
H o m e , Alistair, 36, 51, 156
horse, dismembered, 31, 44, 45-48, machine guns, 25, 137, 161, 164
236ngi, 237ng6, 237ngg madwomen, 4, 174, 176, 178-79
hostages, 19, 21, 67, 216, 244n66, 253M7; Malon, Benoit, 4, 104, 129, 144, 148,
execution of, 160, 163, 214-15 249n29
housewives, 37, 39-40, 55 Manet, Edouard, 219, 221, 247m50
Hugo, Victor, 54, 148, 154 March 18, 16-17, 2 4~56, i 3 2 - 3 3 , 1 49 _ 5°>
hyenas, 197 166-67, 2°4> 21°> 224> 22
8
Marchais, Josephine-Marguerite, 206-9
Impressionists, 3, 22gn6 March to Versailles, 58, 96-98. See also
incendiarism, 204 demonstrations of women; French Revo-
incendiary mania, 176 lution
International Working Men's Association, Marianne, 8-9, 85, 156, 224
20, 64-65, 125, 24on22, 248ni7 marriage, 113, 118, 129. See also divorce
Index 281
martial law, 202 nature: human, 52, 105, 192; man's, 138,
Marx, Karl, 64, 125 147, 178-79, 192, 157; of real women,
Mary, 5-6, 179, 221, 224, 138, 153, 200; of true womanhood,
Mary Magdalene, 178, 221 140-41, 147; woman's, 1 , 4 - 5 , 3 5 , 4 7 . 5 5 .
masculinity, 2, 178, 192, 242n2; and civi- 85. >35. »39. 144-47. 153-54. !57.
lization, 223. See also men; nature, man's 178-79, 182-83, 191-92, 198-201, 208,
Mayer, Simon, 31-32, 234n32 213, 217, 219-24, 226, 257ni38,
mayors of arrondissements, 17, 59 258n23; women's violation of, 179,
Mazade, Alexandre de, 140-47, 157 189-90. See also femininity; gender con-
Mazade, Celine de, 120-21, 140-47, ceptualizations; masculinity; unnatural
157-58, 169-70, 226-27, 25ing3; desire woman; women
for vengeance, 145-46; friends of, 141, Nerac, 88-89, 9 8 . 10
5. 108
142, 145 Neuilly, 19, 77-79, 95. 104, 143

megaeras, 4 New Caledonia, 21, 154, 156, 211
men: and chivalry, 178, 181; complemen- New York Herald, 70, 78, 79, 166, 169-70,
tary relationship of with women, 135, 177-78
138; and fear of women, 69, 182-83, New York Times, 80-81, 166, 194
223, 227, 261m, 26imo; Leo's criticism New York Tribune, 81, 165-66, 174-75, J 77.
l8
of, 130, 133-35; as protectors of women 3> !95
and children, 75, 77, 147, 181, 190, 198;
roles of, 38, 137. See also nature, man's; orators, 12, 20, 74, 109-19, 145, 159, 167,
masculinity 199, 206, 219, 224. See also clubs
Mendes, Catulle, 34, 36, 58, 69-71, 103-5, orphans, 19, 221
111-13, 161, 167
Michel, Louise, 12-13, 20, 27-28, 30, 34, pacifism, 157, 158; and women, 98, 128,
38,42-43,73, 94-95. 104> 11Q
. 12
°. !36> 139-41. 201
132, 147-58, 162, 194, 199, 206, Papavoine, Eulalie, 206-g
209-14, 226-27, 253ni6, 25gn33, Paris: bombardment of, 78, 137, 142; dam-
26on67, 26on82; explanations of her be- age to, 165, 168-69; personification of,
2
havior, 213; lack of repentance, 210; rep- 5 7 n i 3 5 ; and self-rule, 61-62, 64. See
resentations of, 212; sentence of, 211; also fires; Prussians; Versailles
self-presentation, 210-11; sexuality of, Parisians, 139; hereditary depravity of, 170
211,213. See also Red Virgin Payen, Alix Milliet, 92, 94
Michel, Marianne, 147-48, 150-51 Pelletier, Madeleine, 26on77
10
Milliere, Jean-Baptiste, 2 5 0 n i 2 i Penthesilea, 86-87, 5
Minck, Paule, 110, 152, 200, 209 Pere-Lachaise Cemetery, 21, 23, 83
Montmartre, 15, 17, 24-56 Petit, Alfred Le, 154-55
mothers, 74, 82-85, 118, 176, 219, 221, petroleuses, frontispiece, 3, 4, 11, 13, 21, 38,
225-26 59, 72, 74-75, 107-8, 113, 139, 159,
1
Mullaney, Marie, 211 7° - 73. !75- 81 . l 8 3-9!. !99. 200-201,
Mur des Federes, 23 205-11, 216, 219, 223-28, 25on7o,
255n66, 255n74, 255n76, 257m 3 7
Napoleon III, 1, 14, 62 physiognomy, 113, 195-96, 206, 212,
National Assembly, 16, 18, 24on24 247m 39. See also physiology
National Guard, 15-18, 25, 27-32, 36-37, physiology, 195-97, 206, 258ni7. See also
39. 43-45. 4 8 . 5 7 - 6 2 . 65-67, 70, 95, physiognomy
131-33, 136, 141-46, 148, 150, 152, pillaging, 57, 63, 65-66, 72, 111-12, 143,
162, 170, 219-20, 2 3 2 m ; bourgeois 207, 25ingo
1
units of, 20, 31, 141; representations of, place Blanche, 108-9, Ö2, 246m 16,
65, 90-91. See also cannons; Central 253m 8
Committee place Pigalle, 31, 36, 37, 42, 44-48
282 Index
poisoners, 173, 178, 189 she-wolves, 206

Post-Impressionists, 3, 22gn6 shrews, 38, 178-79
prisoners, 19, 191-93, 2 5 ^ 4 0 ; attacks on, Simon, Jules, 61, 104; Madame, 151
140, 180—81, 194, 198; convoys of, 140, Smith, Bonnie, 146
173-76, 182-83, 199, 25on73; execu- soldiers, 16, 24-30, 33, 36-39, 42-43,
tions of, 67, 159, 194, 253m; female, 48-49; casualties of, 178. See also army;
1
73-77. 193-95> !9 8 . 203; humiliation fraternization; semaine sanglante
of, 180-81; male, 173-76, 193—95; rape Standard, 166, 169, 181, 194-97, 211, 213
of, 181; as sexually provocative, 176; Strasbourg, statue of, 7, 96-97, 148
treatment of, 21, 257ni33. See also bour- Suetens, Leontine, 206-7, 209
geoises; prisons
prisons, conditions in, 192-95, 197-98. See Terror, 12, 19, 48, 58, 66-73, 22 3> 2 3 9 n 3
also Satory Thiers, Adolphe, 15-16, 18—20, 31, 33, 39,
priests and nuns, 137, 141—42, 144—45 53. 5 8 . 6 °. 6a, 64, 83-85, 96, 104, 131,
prostitutes, 9, 12, 16, 37, 46, 48, 55, 151, 149, 151, 168, 170, 210, 235n39,
177-78, 182, 197, 201, 224 23gni2, 24oni4, 24oni7
prostitution, 38, 179 Thomas, Edith, 10, 49, 100, 157, 211,
Proudhonists, 24on22 2 6n
3 94
Prussians, 15-16, 18, 25, 33-37, 60, 122, Thomas, General Clement, 32-33, 48-51,
233m; siege of Paris, 15, 38, 46, 47, 100, 58, 60-61, 163, 235n35, 237nio6,
102, 148, 200 237n 115. See also deaths
Pyat, Felix, 4, 167 tigresses, 176
Times (London), 29-30, 34-36, 38, 42,
Ranvier, Gabriel, 239n6 55-68,79-80, 98, 104, 112, 114,
Rapp explosion. See, explosion 169-71, 173-75, 182
Reclus, Elisee, 94-95, 2441165 trials, 13, 191, 201-17; characteristics of,
Red Virgin, 120, 154-56, 212 203-4; goals of, 191, 204; inconsistency
Renoir, Pierre-August, 247m 50 of sentences, 204, 208, 216; of male lead-
representation, 3-4, 9, 11; ideological uses ers, 201-2, 204-6, 23gni2; ofpetroleuses,
of, 11,24, 35,51,55-56, 157,218-28 205-9, 216; of women, 202-4, 206-14.
Retiffe, Elisabeth, 206-9 See also courts martial; Da Costa, Gaston;
revolutionary hysteria, 213 Michel, Louise
10 1
revolutionary women, 12-13, 213-14, tricoteuses, 12, 48, 58, 61, 69-73, 5> ^
216-17; dress of, 207, 212 118-19, J75. [ 9 8 . 200-1, 223, 225
Rials, Stephane, 40
Rigault, Raoul, 67, 149, 163, 214-16 unarmed women, symbolic significance of,
Rose, 1, 70, 223, 225 77. 1 2 4 _ 2 5
Rosiers, rue des, 27-28, 32, 35-36, 48-49, Union des Femmes, 20, 8g, 9g, 104,
52-54, 149, 233n6, 237nio6, 237m 10 120-21, 123, 125-28, 138, 162, 248ni7
Rossel, Louis, 96, 129, 134, 144, 249n4i unnatural women, 175, 201
unrulywoman, 51, 18g, 218-28. See also
Sand, George, 200, 26on77 amazons; ambulancieres; armed women;
Sarcey, Francisque, 4, 176-77, 179, 199, bloodthirsty women; cantinibes; emanci-
206, 213-14, 242n67 pated woman; furies; harpies; hecates;
Satory, 192-94,210. See also prisoners; pris- hyenas; jackals; lionesses; madwomen;
ons megaeras; petroleuses; poisoners; prosti-
semaine sanglante, 3, 13, 20-23, 159-66, tutes; revolutionary women; she-wolves;
176, 190, 165, 201, 215-16, 219, 223-24 shrews; tigresses; tricoteuses; unnatural
Serman, William, 40 women; viragoes; vivandibes; witches;
Sherer, Leonce, 90, 114 women warriors
Index 283
Valles, Jules, 163 women: appeals of for peace, 121-22,

Varlin, Eugene, 239n6, 2 4 0 m 7 127-28; bad, 37, 46; and children, 41,
Vendöme Column, 19 43> 46' 5 4 - 5 5 : and courage, 144-45,
veritable citoyenne, 97, 121, 123-25, 127 !5 2 -53> !75 _ 76> as creatures, 139, 147,
Verite surla Commune, 34-35, 38, 42, 51, 53 178-79, 182-83, 223; criminality of,
Versailles: bourgeoises' treatment of prison- 258n23; death-desiring, 36; disagree-
ers, 139; crimes of, 123-24, 159; criti- ments between, 127-28; disappearance
cism of, 137; execution of prisoners, 67, of from history, 49; discrimination
159; forces of, 18; reprisals for deaths of against, 152-53; duty of, 124, 201; equal-
generals, 54-55; and siege of Paris, 17, ity of with men, 135; forgetting their sex,
78, 137; Terror of, 254n33; treatment of 178, 182; good, 37, 46; grievances of,
126, 129; horror stories about, 113;
ambulancieres, 95; treatment of cantinikes,
judgments of, 74, 196, 197; manliness
94-95; values of, 125-26; 128; women of,
of, 97; masculinization of, 116; as minis-
72-73
tering angels, 12, 118; mission of, 122;
vigilance committees, 19, 28, 100, 148-49,
and modesty, 196; and morality, 118,
151-53, 162, 2 5 1 m 11
122-24, 201, 209; proper place of, 208,
Villiers, Maxime, 2 4 7 m 28
223; proper roles of, 35; as seductresses,
viragoes, 4, 86, 105, 119, 157, 175, 189,
176; and sexuality, 201, 209, 213, 217,
221, 226
225, 227; stereotypes of, 82; as victims,
vivandieres, 70, 86, 177, 189
1 2 , 7 4 - 8 5 , 187, 189, 226; as wild ani-
Vizetelly, Ernest, 34, 44, 50, 82, 104, 111,
mals, 7 1 , 1 7 4 . See also appeals to wo-
167, 175
man; bourgeoises; Commune; cannons;
Voltaire, statue of, 182
crowd; deaths; emancipated women;
vraie citoyenne, 122-26
femininity; gender conceptualizatons;
housewives; mothers; nature; unruly
war: evils of, 78-79; horrors of, 75; as male
women; widows
activity, 137; romanticization of, 138; and
women warriors, 74, 86-87, 99-109,
women, 1 2 1 - 2 2 , 8 2 - 8 3 , 137, 25gn36
Warner, Marina, 118 118-19, 149> ' 6 7 . 177
Washburne, E. B., 36, 51-53, 7 1 , 1 1 1 - 1 3 , working class, 5, 112, 116-17; praise of the,
118, 171-72, 255n76 131-32, 136
widows, 19, 74, 82-85, 118, 219, 221, 226;
adoption of by Commune, 85 Young, James E., 2 3 i n 3 i
witches, 174, 176, 178 Young, J o h n Russell, 72, 111-13

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Unruly Women of Paris

Cornell University Press

First published 1996 by Cornell University Press.

Printed in the United States of America

© T h e paper in this book meets the minimum requirements of the

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Frederic Lix, "The Incendiaries: T h e Petroleuses a n d

17. Eugene Girard, The Emancipated Woman Shedding Light on

cial history of women's lives and activities and m e t a m o r p h o s e d into a study

Silver Spring, Maryland

Rereading the Commune

n 1862 Jules a n d E d m o n d d e G o n c o u r t discovered t h a t their devoted

I servant Rose, w h o h a d t a k e n care of t h e m f o r twenty-five years h a d de-

c o n d e m n e d the French government; its critics have maligned the revolu-

T h e images or representations of the communardes* in texts p r o d u c e d

the pro-Commune journalist and historian Prosper-Olivier Lissagaray, they

turies, 1 7 b u t industrialization h a d given the debate new urgency. As work

shifted over the centuries, but she remains the u n i q u e e m b o d i m e n t of ma-

In Western culture, the representation of governments and philosophi-

FIGURE I . T h e First Seal of t h e Republic. Archives Nationales.

Men and women may derive different messages f r o m female represen-

FIGURE 2. E u g e n e Delacroix, Liberty leading the People on the Ramparts. Musee d u

Dispassionate objectivity has often eluded historians of the C o m m u n e .

women to specific sections of the text. 2 9 Although this strategy constitutes

Some of this difference is a p r o d u c t of the questions they ask as readers of

ed, the C o m m u n a r d s were powerless to d e t h r o n e this new negative female

T h e Parisian deputies to the Legislative Assembly f o r m e d a provisional

On March 1, the Prussians entered Paris through the Bois de Boulogne,

ply badly handled or was designed to provoke a revolt so the government

sible as the Cn du Peupk declared, that "the d r u m s of Santerre will never

prepared to defend the barricades. Female orators d e n o u n c e d the gov-

hostages, including the city's archbishop. Rumors circulated that female

ence p o i n t for b o t h the Left a n d t h e Right. For the Right, it provided a

The Women of March 18

h e revolution known as the Paris C o m m u n e b e g a n with a day of

T high d r a m a in the working-class n e i g h b o r h o o d s of Pans, a n d

republican city in general, b u t it was especially nervous about areas like

h o l d prisoners d u r i n g the morning), strategic intersections a n d streets,

What had b e e n ignored during the night galvanized attention when

Vigilance Committee of the eighteenth arrondissement, h e r rifle u n d e r

As soon as they got within 20 o r 30 yards of t h e Line regiment, t h e soldiers

Similar scenes were played out a r o u n d Paris and elsewhere in Mont-

marched away f r o m the rue des Rosiers as h e was arriving. 3 7 T h e crowd

The deaths of Generals Lecomte and Clement Thomas certainly made

i o Unruly Women of Paris

break ranks, as their officers knew at the outset. 4 1 Inadequately organized,

streets, the demonstrations outside the Chateau-Rouge which led to the

i o Unruly Women of Paris

during the Prussian siege. T h e a f t e r n o o n women were self-indulgent; they

t h e f a u b o u r g s are awaking a n d t h e m o r n i n g shops o p e n i n g . A r o u n d the

Lanjalley a n d Corriez, in contrast, r e c o u n t e d t h a t

the firing of g u n s [at t h e r u e des Rosiers] h a d , in effect, s o u n d e d t h e alarm

T h e news of t h e c o u p was j u s t b e g i n n i n g to spread. O n t h e d o o r s t e p s a n d in

T h e similarities a n d d i f f e r e n c e s a m o n g these texts are interesting. Lan-

M o n t m a r t r e . . . h a d awakened, a n d already it was extraordinarily a n i m a t e d .

H e n r i Lefebvre, writing a half century later, a d d e d children and another

But at M o n t m a r t r e ? First t h e w o m e n c a m e o u t into t h e streets; they were ac-

In his centenary history, Stewart Edwards followed the primary texts

Slowly t h e village awakened. W o m e n c a m e o u t to fetch milk a n d saw t h e

Women without children were an apparent impossibility.

But p e o p l e were already u p in t h e heavily p o p u l a t e d streets where t h e s o u n d

Bourgin's version of the early m o r n i n g events varies in three seemingly

mains for women and men, Bourgin imposes t h e m o n the residents of