For the 1936-1939 Spanish Civil War

Spanish Civil War

The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...

 units, see Louise Michel Battalions

Louise Michel Battalions

Two battalions of French-speaking volunteers in the International Brigades of the Spanish Civil War were named after Louise Michel, a heroine of the 1871 Paris Commune. They mustered in November/December 1936....

Louise Michel (1830–1905) was a French anarchist

Anarchism in France

Thinker Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who grew up during the Restoration was the first self-described anarchist. French anarchists fought in the Spanish Civil War as volunteers in the International Brigades. French anarchism reached its height in the late 19th century...

, school teacher and medical worker. She often used the pseudonym Clémence and was also known as the red virgin of Montmartre. Journalist Brian Doherty

Brian Doherty (journalist)

Brian Doherty is an American journalist. He is a Senior Editor at Reason magazine. He is the author of This Is Burning Man: The Rise of a New American Underground , Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement and Gun Control on Trial: Inside the...

 has called her "[t]he French grande dame of anarchy

Anarchy

Anarchy , has more than one colloquial definition. In the United States, the term "anarchy" typically is meant to refer to a society which lacks publicly recognized government or violently enforced political authority...

."

Biography

Louise Michel was born at the Château

Château

A château is a manor house or residence of the lord of the manor or a country house of nobility or gentry, with or without fortifications, originally—and still most frequently—in French-speaking regions...

 of Vroncourt (Haute-Marne

Haute-Marne

Haute-Marne is a department in the northeast of France named after the Marne River.-History:Haute-Marne is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790...

) on 29 May 1830, the daughter of a serving-maid, Marianne Michel, and the son of the châtelain

Châtelain

Châtelain was originally merely the French equivalent of the English castellan, i.e. the commander of a castle....

, Etienne Charles Demahis.

She was brought up by her father's parents and received a liberal education. After her grandfather's death in 1850 she was trained to teach, but her refusal to acknowledge Napoleon III prevented her from serving in a state school. She became violently anti-Bonapartist

Bonapartist

In French political history, Bonapartism has two meanings. In a strict sense, this term refers to people who aimed to restore the French Empire under the House of Bonaparte, the Corsican family of Napoleon Bonaparte and his nephew Louis...

, and is even said to have contemplated the assassination of Napoleon III. In 1866 she found her way to a school in the Montmartre quarter

Montmartre

Montmartre is a hill which is 130 metres high, giving its name to the surrounding district, in the north of Paris in the 18th arrondissement, a part of the Right Bank. Montmartre is primarily known for the white-domed Basilica of the Sacré Cœur on its summit and as a nightclub district...

 of Paris, where she threw herself ardently into works of charity and revolutionary politics.

Paris

She was active during the Paris Commune

Paris Commune

The Paris Commune was a government that briefly ruled Paris from March 18 to May 28, 1871. It existed before the split between anarchists and Marxists had taken place, and it is hailed by both groups as the first assumption of power by the working class during the Industrial Revolution...

 as an ambulance woman and treated those injured on the barricades. During the Siege of Paris

Siege of Paris

The Siege of Paris, lasting from September 19, 1870 – January 28, 1871, and the consequent capture of the city by Prussian forces led to French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War and the establishment of the German Empire as well as the Paris Commune....

 she untiringly preached resistance against the Prussia

Prussia

Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...

ns. On the establishment of the Commune, she joined the National Guard. She offered to shoot Thiers

Adolphe Thiers

Marie Joseph Louis Adolphe Thiers was a French politician and historian. was a prime minister under King Louis-Philippe of France. Following the overthrow of the Second Empire he again came to prominence as the French leader who suppressed the revolutionary Paris Commune of 1871...

, and suggested the destruction of Paris by way of vengeance for its surrender.

She was with the Communards

Communards

The Communards were members and supporters of the short-lived 1871 Paris Commune formed in the wake of the Franco-Prussian War and France's defeat....

 who made their last stand in the cemetery of Montmartre, and was closely allied with Théophile Ferré

Théophile Ferré

Théophile Charles Gilles Ferré, was one of the members of the Paris Commune. He, together with Louis Rossel and Bourgeois, was one of the first to be executed at Satory, the military base south-west of Versailles....

, who was executed in November 1871. Michel dedicated a moving farewell poem to Ferré, l’œillet rouge (The Red Carnation).
It is without a doubt that upon learning of this loss, Victor Hugo

Victor Hugo

Victor-Marie Hugo was a Frenchpoet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France....

 dedicated his poem Viro Major to Michel. This ardent attachment was perhaps one of the sources of the exaltation which marked her career, and gave many handles to her enemies.

In December 1871, she was brought before the 6th council of war, charged with offences including trying to overthrow the government, encouraging citizens to arm themselves, and herself using weapons and wearing a military uniform. Defiantly, she vowed to never renounce the Commune, and dared the judges to sentence her to death. Reportedly, Michel told the court, “Since it seems that every heart that beats for freedom has no right to anything but a little slug of lead, I demand my share. If you let me live, I shall never cease to cry for vengeance.”

She spent twenty months in prison and was sentenced to deportation. It was at this time that the Versailles press gave her the name la Louve rouge, la Bonne Louise (the red she-wolf, the good Louise).

The text of the L’œillet rouge" is as follows:

If were to go to the black cemetery

Brothers, throw on your sister,

As a final hope,

Some red 'carnations' in bloom.

In the final days of Empire,

When the people were awakening,

It was your smile red carnation

which told us that all was being reborn.

Today, go blossom in the shadow of the black and sad prisons.

Go, bloom near the somber captive,

And tell him/her truly that we love him/her.

Tell that through fleeting time

Everything belongs to the future

That the livid-browed conqueror

can die more surely than the conquered.

Deportation

She was loaded onto the ship Virginie on the 8th of August, 1873, to be deported to New Caledonia

New Caledonia

New Caledonia is a special collectivity of France located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, east of Australia and about from Metropolitan France. The archipelago, part of the Melanesia subregion, includes the main island of Grande Terre, the Loyalty Islands, the Belep archipelago, the Isle of...

 where she arrived 4 months later. Whilst on board, she became acquainted with Henri Rochefort, a famous polemicist, who became her friend until her death. She also met Nathalie Lemel

Nathalie Lemel

Nathalie Lemel , was a militant anarchist and feminist who participated on the barricades at the Commune de Paris of 1871. She was deported to Nouvelle Calédonie with Louise Michel.-The Bookbinder:...

, another figure active in the commune. Most likely, it was this latter contact that led Louise to become an anarchist. She remained in New Caledonia for seven years, refusing special treatment reserved for women. Befriending the local kanaks, she attempted to educate them and, unlike others in the commune, took their side in their 1878 revolt. She is even said to have sent the ringleader of the rebellion Ataï a piece of her scarf.

The following year, she received authorisation to become a teacher in Noumea

Nouméa

Nouméa is the capital city of the French territory of New Caledonia. It is situated on a peninsula in the south of New Caledonia's main island, Grande Terre, and is home to the majority of the island's European, Polynesian , Indonesian, and Vietnamese populations, as well as many Melanesians,...

 for the children of the deported — among them many Kabyles (Kabyles du Pacifique

Kabyles du Pacifique

The Algerians of the Pacific were a group of men and women deported by French authorities to labor camps on the island of New Caledonia, after taking part in the 1870-1871 mainly Kabyle uprising against colonial rule in Algeria....

) from Cheikh Mokrani

Cheikh Mokrani

Mohamed El- Mokrani was one of the principal leaders of the popular uprising at the end of 19th century following the French conquest in Algeria in 1830.- Reasons for Revolt :...

's rebellion (1871) — and later in schools for girls.

Return to France

Michel returned to Paris in 1880, after amnesty was granted to the Communards. Her revolutionary passion undiminished, she gave a public address on the 21st of November, 1880. She continued her revolutionary activity in Europe, attending the anarchist congress in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 in 1881, where she led demonstrations, spoke to huge crowds, and headed a libertarian school.

She travelled throughout France, preaching revolution, and in 1883 she led a Paris mob which pillaged a baker's shop. For this she was condemned to six years imprisonment, but was released in 1886, at the same time as Kropotkin

Peter Kropotkin

Prince Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin was a Russian zoologist, evolutionary theorist, philosopher, economist, geographer, author and one of the world's foremost anarcho-communists. Kropotkin advocated a communist society free from central government and based on voluntary associations between...

 and other prominent anarchists. After a short period of freedom she was again arrested for making inflammatory speeches. She was soon liberated, but, hearing that her enemies hoped to intern her in a lunatic asylum, she fled to England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 in 1890. She returned to France in 1895, taking part in the agitation provoked by the Dreyfuss affair in 1898, and from this time forward, she split up her time between conferences and stays with friends in London.

She was stopped many times during demonstrations, and was again incarcerated for six years, but eventually freed after three years thanks to the intervention of Georges Clemenceau

Georges Clemenceau

Georges Benjamin Clemenceau was a French statesman, physician and journalist. He served as the Prime Minister of France from 1906 to 1909, and again from 1917 to 1920. For nearly the final year of World War I he led France, and was one of the major voices behind the Treaty of Versailles at the...

, so that she could see her mother again at the brink of death. She was again incarcerated several times, although for shorter periods of time. One could say she was constantly followed by the police.

She was touring France and lecturing on behalf of anarchist causes when she died in Room 11, Hotel Oasis, Marseilles on January 10, 1905. Her funeral in Paris drew an immense crowd that did not fail to impress contemporaries. Numerous orators spoke, among them the Master Mason of the Lodge of Universal Fraternity, provoking interest in whether or not Michel was in fact a Freemason. She was invited to a Lodge

Masonic Lodge

This article is about the Masonic term for a membership group. For buildings named Masonic Lodge, see Masonic Lodge A Masonic Lodge, often termed a Private Lodge or Constituent Lodge, is the basic organisation of Freemasonry...

 one year before her death, but was never officially "initiated." The members of the Lodge felt honored by her joining, and believed that her previous actions exempted her from the rite of initiation. However, she never attended the Lodge, and when asked why, responded that she "thought they didn't accept women."

Social legacy

Michel became highly admired by French workers and revolutionaries, particularly for her association with the Paris Commune

Paris Commune

The Paris Commune was a government that briefly ruled Paris from March 18 to May 28, 1871. It existed before the split between anarchists and Marxists had taken place, and it is hailed by both groups as the first assumption of power by the working class during the Industrial Revolution...

. From after her death until 1916, a demonstration was held every year at her tomb at Levallois-Perret

Levallois-Perret

Levallois-Perret is a commune in the northwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris.-Name:The name Levallois-Perret comes from two housing developments, Champerret and Village Levallois , and which resulted in the incorporation of the...

.

A legendary figure of the labour movement

Labour movement

The term labour movement or labor movement is a broad term for the development of a collective organization of working people, to campaign in their own interest for better treatment from their employers and governments, in particular through the implementation of specific laws governing labour...

, Michel had the ability to incite crowds to act. Frequently, the language used to describe her is that reserved for saints and heretics; she is often referred to as "Bonne Louise" (Good Louise) or the "Vierge rouge" (red Virgin). For better or worse, Michel seems to have fascinated her contemporaries. This woman, educated and cultured, intelligent without being shy and retiring, and lacking the beauty of certain demimondaines

Demimonde

Demi-monde refers to a group of people who live hedonistic lifestyles, usually in a flagrant and conspicuous manner. The term was commonly used in Europe from the late 18th to the early 20th century, and modern use often refers to that period...

 and other women of loose morals who populated the period before the Belle Epoque

Belle Époque

The Belle Époque or La Belle Époque was a period in European social history that began during the late 19th century and lasted until World War I. Occurring during the era of the French Third Republic and the German Empire, it was a period characterised by optimism and new technological and medical...

, was surrounded by many male celebrities. They were often her steadfast friends, until the end of her life, or more frequently to the end of theirs. For a period when women still had essentially no rights, she was in many respects an exception.

Photos taken of her reveal a woman with a strong and serious face, and a slender figure (it has since been argued that she and Dolores Ibárruri,
i..e., La Pasionaria, another Left-of-Center social activist, shared a resemblance). She was, with George Sand

George Sand

Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin, later Baroness Dudevant , best known by her pseudonym George Sand , was a French novelist and memoirist.-Life:...

, one of the rare women of the 19th century to have worn male clothing at one stage of her life, revealing a feminist indignation.

Generous, devoted to the cause of the most wretched, it is without the slightest doubt her courage which best characterises her personality. When she found herself before the court, she used it as a political soapbox and imposed herself on the judges, who on several occasions commuted her sentences.

Her literary legacy consists of a few theoretical essays and some poems, legend

Legend

A legend is a narrative of human actions that are perceived both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude...

s and tale

Short story

A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...

s, including some for children, who never failed to interest her. It is perhaps ironic that although primarily remembered for her militant activism — i.e., for her so-called "Social Revolution" — her name is frequently given to primary and secondary schools in French towns. She thus has an implicit image in French culture as France's school teacher, rather than the secular missionary that she in fact was.

On May 1, 1946, the Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

ian métro

Paris Métro

The Paris Métro or Métropolitain is the rapid transit metro system in Paris, France. It has become a symbol of the city, noted for its density within the city limits and its uniform architecture influenced by Art Nouveau. The network's sixteen lines are mostly underground and run to 214 km ...

 station "Vallier" was renamed Louise Michel. See: Louise Michel (Paris Metro)

Louise Michel (Paris Metro)

Louise Michel is a station on Paris Métro Line 3. It is located in the commune of Levallois-Perret, northwest of the capital.-History:Louise Michel was opened on 24 September 1937 when the line was extended from Porte de Champerret to Pont de Levallois – Bécon. It was originally called Vallier,...

.

In 1975, the courtyard in front of the Basilica of Sacré-Coeur in Montmartre

Montmartre

Montmartre is a hill which is 130 metres high, giving its name to the surrounding district, in the north of Paris in the 18th arrondissement, a part of the Right Bank. Montmartre is primarily known for the white-domed Basilica of the Sacré Cœur on its summit and as a nightclub district...

, Paris was named in Louise Michel's honor. The sign at the gate proclaims her a "Heroine of the Commune".

In 2005, the hundredth anniversary of her death was celebrated. During the celebration, two seminars paid homage to the "bonne Louise," notably the important March seminar "Louise Michel, figure of transversality" (led by Valérie Morignat), organized by the mayor of Paris and the cultural association Actazé. This event brought together 22 Louise Michel specialists who underlined an unclassifiable, brilliant, and still contemporary personality. Louise Michel's extraordinary influence can still be seen today in departments of American Feminine Studies, in the form of her thousand-page novel "La misère" (Misery), which denounced the social crisis of the suburbs long before the crisis was recognized as a problem.

Quotes

Michel once joked, “We love to have agents provocateurs

Agent provocateur

Traditionally, an agent provocateur is a person employed by the police or other entity to act undercover to entice or provoke another person to commit an illegal act...

 in the party, because they always propose the most revolutionary motions.”

Publications

• À travers la vie, poetry, Paris, 1894.
• Le Bâtard impérial, by L. Michel and J. Winter, Paris, 1883.
• Le claque-dents, Paris.
• La Commune, Paris, 1898.
• Contes et légendes, Paris, 1884.
• Les Crimes de l'époque, nouvelles inédites, Paris, 1888.
• Défense de Louise Michel, Bordeaux
  Bordeaux
  Bordeaux is a port city on the Garonne River in the Gironde department in southwestern France.The Bordeaux-Arcachon-Libourne metropolitan area, has a population of 1,010,000 and constitutes the sixth-largest urban area in France. It is the capital of the Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture...
  
  , 1883.
• L'Ère nouvelle, pensée dernière, souvenirs de Calédonie (prisoners' songs), Paris, 1887
• La Fille du peuple par L. Michel et A. Grippa, Paris (1883) Fleurs et ronces, poetry, Paris,
• Le Gars Yvon, légende bretonne, Paris, 1882.
• Lectures encyclopédiques par cycles attractifs, Paris, 1888.
• Ligue internationale des femmes révolutionnaires, Appel à une réunion. Signed "Louise Michel", Paris, 1882.
• Le livre du jour de l'an : historiettes, contes et légendes pour les enfants, Paris, 1872.
• Lueurs dans l'ombre. Plus d'idiots, plus de fous. L'âme intelligente. L'idée libre. L'esprit lucide de la terre à Dieu... Paris, 1861.
• Manifeste et proclamation de Louise Michel aux citoyennes de Paris, Signed "Louise Maboul", Paris, 1883.
• Mémoires, Paris, 1886, t. 1.
• Les Méprises, grand roman de mœurs parisiennes, par Louise Michel et Jean Guêtré, Paris, 1882.
• Les Microbes humains, Paris, 1886.
• La Misère by Louise Michel, 2nd part, and Jean Guêtré 1st part, Paris, 1882.
• Le Monde nouveau, Paris, 1888

Posthumous: :

• Vol. I. Avant la Commune. Preface by Laurent Tailhade
  Laurent Tailhade
  Laurent Tailhade was a French satirical poet, anarchist polemicist, essayist, and translator, active in Paris in the 1890s and early 1900s...
  
  , Alfortville
  Alfortville
  Alfortville is a commune in the southeastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris.-History:The commune of Alfortville was created on 1 April 1885 by detaching its territory from the commune of Maisons-Alfort.-Transport:...
  
  , 1905.
• Les Paysans by Louise Michel et Émile Gautier, Paris, Incomplete.
• Prise de possession, Saint-Denis, 1890.
• Le Rêve (in a work by Constant Martin), Paris, 1898.
• Légendes et chants de gestes canaques. Présentation. Gérard Oberlé. Edition 1900. 1988.
• , edition established by Xavière Gauthier, Édition de Paris-Max Chaleil, 1999.

In the press

Michel was often discussed in the French press during her lifetime, as well as the English-language press in Britain and the United States. These are a sample of press caricatures of Michel:

External links

• Louise Michel archive at the Anarchy Archives
  Anarchy Archives
  The Anarchy Archives project is a self-described online research center on the history and theory of anarchism. It was created in September 1995 by Dana Ward, a Professor of Political Studies at Pitzer College...
  
  
• Les Louise Mitchels - French D.I.Y. jazz-punk band influenced by the life and work of Louise Michel
• Cartoons
• Paul Foot on Louise Michel