A teacher, woman of letters and anarchist and feminist activist, Louise Michel (1830 – 1905) is one of the major figures of the Commune of Paris .
Love of equality
Born on May 29, 1830 in Haute-Marne at the Château de Vroncourt, Louise Michel was the daughter of Marie-Anne Michel, a servant, and of an "unknown father" (probably Laurent Demahis, son of the squire, whose name she bore until his 20th birthday). She grew up in the castle and received a quality education there. The castellans are followers of the Lights; they made him read Rousseau, Voltaire, Diderot, and instilled in him humanist values. In 1850, however, her condition as an illegitimate child caught up with Louise:when the owners died, she and her mother had to leave the château and work.
In 1852, Louise obtained a teacher's diploma. The same year, refusing to take the oath to Napoleon III, she created a free school in Haute-Marne, where she opened a second school in 1854, and taught there for a year before leaving for Paris. Louise began teaching there in 1856 and continued her activity for fifteen years, within the free schools she created. Committed to equality and convinced that it is through education that it can be achieved, it strives to provide similar education to all, girls and boys.
Enjolras
In addition to her teaching career, Louise Michel cherishes the dream of becoming a writer. She publishes texts and poems under the name of Enjolras (a character from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo, leader of a revolutionary coterie) and maintains a correspondence with Hugo. After the episode of the Paris Commune, the writer will take up his defense.
Always committed, Louise Michel frequented revolutionary circles and rubbed shoulders with personalities such as Jules Vallès, Raoul Rigault and Émile Eudes. She became a Blanquist, a supporter of the revolutionary and socialist republican movement founded by Auguste Blanqui. She also meets Georges Clemenceau.
The Paris Commune
In 1870, during the Franco-Prussian War, Louise Michel demonstrated against the arrest of Blanquists. While famine raged in Paris, besieged by Prussian troops, she created a canteen for her students and for poor children. She became a member of the Vigilance Committee of Montmartre, a political association, and president of the vigilance committee of the citizens of the 18th arrondissement. She also contributes to the daily opposition to the government of Thiers created by Jules Vallès and Pierre Denis, Le Cri du peuple.
On March 18, 1871, an insurrection broke out in Paris when the Thiers government wanted to disarm the National Guard and requisition the cannons stored in Montmartre and paid for by the people of Paris. The population and the National Guard then revolted. In the early morning, Louise is at the head of the women who oppose the requisition of the guns. When a member of the National Guard is wounded, she tries in vain to treat him.
Louise throws herself body and soul into the insurrection. Quickly, the government takes refuge in Versailles and the Commune of Paris is proclaimed. Louise will propose to go to Versailles to assassinate Thiers, but will not be followed. During the two months of the Commune, marked by a policy of self-management and clashes with Versailles, Louise gave herself without counting. Weapons in hand, she took part in street battles in Issy-les-Moulineaux, Neuilly, Clignancourt, in the uniform of the national guards. She also serves as a paramedic. And when the insurgency is harshly suppressed and finally defeated during Bloody Week in May, it fights to the bitter end.
Deportation to New Caledonia
Louise Michel survived the massacres and mass arrests of the Bloody Week which claimed thousands of victims. The government of Versailles then had his mother imprisoned, and the communard went to have her released. Detained near Versailles, she witnessed the execution of her friends and the man she loved, Théophile Ferré, before being judged herself.
Louise, who demanded the equality of women and men in the struggle, did the same in the face of repression. When she was questioned in June, far from trying like many to minimize her participation in the Commune, she declared:"What I want from you is the Satory post where our brothers have already fallen; I must cut myself off from society. We tell you to do it. Well, we are right. Since it seems that any heart that beats for freedom today is only entitled to a little lead, I claim my share of it, mo i ! »
Louise was sentenced to deportation and sent to New Caledonia in 1873. During the boat trip, Louise met Henri Rochefort, a famous polemicist, and Nathalie Lemel, anarchist and feminist activist, who were also deported. In contact with the latter, Louise becomes an anarchist. Detained for seven years in New Caledonia, she seeks, unlike others, to meet the Kanaks. Faithful to her love of knowledge, she learned a Kanak language, created a newspaper, published a collection of Kanak tales and sought to educate the locals. When they revolted in 1878, she defended them. In 1879, she obtained the right to settle in Nouméa and resumed her job as a teacher there. The same year, his sentence was commuted to a ten-year banishment; in December, she receives a remission of the remainder of her sentence.
Activist in Paris
In 1880, Louise Michel returned to Paris; the crowd warmly welcomes her to cries of "Long live Louise Michel!" Long live the Commune! “. She immediately resumed her activity as an activist and woman of letters, giving conferences, intervening in political debates and publishing a book. On March 9, 1883, she led a demonstration at the Invalides on behalf of the "unemployed" which degenerated into a confrontation with the police. After surrendering to the authorities, she was sentenced to six years in prison. Pardoned in 1886, she was imprisoned again in August for a speech in favor of minors, for four months. In 1887, she took a stand against the death penalty. In 1890, she was again arrested following a speech.
Released on June 4, 1890, she took refuge in London where she created and managed a libertarian school before returning to France in 1895. For ten years, she multiplied conferences, militant actions and stays in London. During these years, she was arrested and imprisoned several times, but never ceased her activity.
Louise Michel died in January 1905 in Marseilles of pneumonia.
Red carnations – Louise Michel – September 1871
(The second part of the poem is dedicated to Théophile Ferré, who is to be executed)
In those days, at night, we gathered in the shadows,
Outraged, shaking off the sinister and black yoke
From the man of December, and we shivered, gloomy,
Like the beast at the slaughterhouse.
The Empire was coming to an end. He killed at his leisure,
In his lair where the threshold smelled of blood.
He reigned, but in the air blew La Marseillaise.
Red was the rising sun.
It often happened that a bardic effluvium,
Enveloping us all, made our hearts vibrate.
To the one who sang the heroic collection,
Sometimes we threw flowers.
Of those red carnations that, to recognize us,
Had each of us, reborn, red flowers.
Others will take you back in time to come,
And these will be the victors.
If I went to the black cemetery,
Brothers, throw on your sister,
Like a last hope,
Blooming red carnations.
In the last days of the Empire,
When the people awoke,
Carnation red, it was your smile
Which tells us that everything was reborn.
Today will bloom in the shadows
Black and sad prisons.
Will bloom by the dark captive,
And tell him we love him.
Tell him by the fast time
It's all in the future;
May the victor with a livid brow
More than the vanquished can die.