https://www.amazon.com/Red-Virgin-Memoirs-Louise-Michel/dp/0817300635/?tag=2022091-20
1981
https://www.amazon.com/Commune-Paris-1871-Louise-Michel/dp/0985890932/?tag=2022091-20
2013
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/2729708715/?tag=2022091-20
2013
https://www.amazon.com/La-chasse-aux-loups/dp/2812446595/?tag=2022091-20
2015
https://www.amazon.com/PARIS-COMMUNE-Louise-Michel-ebook/dp/B00XRSNO1Y/?tag=2022091-20
2015
https://www.amazon.com/Les-microbes-humains/dp/B07C5NST2S/?tag=2022091-20
2018
politician teacher Revolutionary medic
Louise Michel was born on May 29, 1830, in an austere castle called Vroncourt (Haute-Marne) where her mother, Marianne Michel, was a maidservant. Her father was reputed to have been Laurent Demahis, the owner's son, but her father may have been the owner himself, Etienne-Charles Demahis.
Loise's grandparents raised her as a Demahis, and she received a liberal education from them. Her grandfather had her read Voltaire, Rousseau, and the encyclopedists, and her grandmother taught her to sing and play the piano.
She earned certification (1852) through courses at Madame Duval's school in Lagny and the state institute in nearby Chaumont.
She attended lectures on physics, chemistry, and law. These courses helped to quench her thirst for knowledge.
In January 1853 Louise Michel took a position as a schoolmistress at Audelancourt. In the time she was teaching there, she constantly dreamed of going to Paris. When she did move there, she concentrated on teaching, writing poetry and reading.
She opened her own school in Audeloncourt in 1852, went off to Paris in 1853 to teach, but returned to Haute-Marne because her mother was ill. Michel tried to start another school in Audeloncourt, failed, opened one in Clefmont (1854-55), left and started one in Millières (1855), and finally, in 1855 or 1856, left Haute-Marne for good to teach in Paris, first at Madame Vollier's school and then, having sold the last of her land to finance it (1865), at her own school at 5, rue des Cloys, later (1868) at 24, rue Oudot.
During the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871) Michel organized women's first-aid units during the siege of Paris (September 1870-January 1871). She was arrested for leading a group of women requesting weapons from military authorities and fought in several attempts to overthrow the moderate government in favor of a more vigorous and evolutionary republic. 'The first time you take up arms in defense of your cause/' she later wrote, "you enter into the struggle so completely that you yourself become a sort of projectile." Six weeks after the end of the war Michel helped spark the insurrection of 18 March 1871 that began the Paris Commune when she rallied Parisians against French government troops. During the Commune, she donned a uniform and joined the 61st Battalion of the National Guard as a nurse and canteen worker, but also fought in many engagements.
She fought on the barricades after government forces entered the city on 21 May, but surrendered when she heard that her mother was to be shot in her place. At her trial, she became a celebrity by proudly admitting her exploits and demanding the death sentence, but was instead deported to a fortress in New Caledonia with thousands of other Communards. After the amnesty of 1880, she returned to France and continued to work for revolution until her death.
Louise Michel is famous as a French anarchist and writer whose heroism during the Paris Commune insurrection and subsequent imprisonments, and example of selfless devotion to her ideals made her one of the most celebrated female revolutionaries of her time. She rejected parliamentary reform, believed in sensational acts of violence and advocated class war.
Louise Michel was anti-religious. She was reinforced by the works of Darwin in materialism denying immortality after death. She belonged to the Scottish Rite.
Michel's debut in political agitation came on January 12, 1870, when, dressed as a man ("so as not to bother or be bothered by anyone") and carrying a concealed knife, she joined the immense demonstration at the funeral of Victor Noir, a Republican journalist assassinated by Prince Pierre Bonaparte. But no insurrection occurred. The pattern would become fixed for her: forever hoping - even expecting - the next meeting or demonstration or uprising would set in motion The Revolution which would open the gates to Humanity's glorious future. As fate would have it, the dramas played out in the Franco-Prussian War (July 19, 1870–January 28, 1871), including the great siege of Paris, and the ensuing bloody tragedy of the Paris Commune (March 18–May 28, 1871) would supply immediate reinforcement for this pattern. Their melodramatic trappings and intensity swept Michel into an unrestrained involvement from start to finish.
She took part in peaceful demonstrations on the eve of the war, but once France was invaded she became a fiery patriot, infuriated at the government's incompetence. She first drew serious notice when, with two other women (André Léo and Adèle Esquiros ), she circulated a letter from the historian Jules Michelet calling for the release of several Blanquists arrested for seizing weapons from a barracks in order to overthrow Napoleon III's regime. They took the letter with several thousand signatures straight to the military governor of Paris, an almost scandalous thing for women to do. The appeal failed, but the fall of the French Empire on September 4, after the battle of Sédan, saved the rebels. During the ensuing great siege of Paris by two German armies, Michel ran a school for 200 girls aged 6–12 and shelter for younger refugees, but she also organized the Women's Vigilance Committee of Montmartre.
Michel was an outspoken feminist, but unconventional. She preached absolute equality and respect between the sexes. Husbands and wives should be "companions." But as an anarchist, she put no stock in voting and thus none in women's suffrage per se. Women should in no way separate their cause from humanity's, the fight for progress and universal peace. By 1890, she also was not favoring promoting work for women outside the home; in any event, women should not have to work outside. And by 1899, she was advising poor parents against giving too much education to their daughters lest they encourage a taste for luxury and thus incline them toward prostitution, which she abominated.
Quotations:
"In my mind, I feel the soft darkness of a spring night. It is May 1871, and I see the red reflection of flames. It is Paris afire. That fire is dawn."
"We love to have agents provocateurs in the party because they always propose the most revolutionary motions."
"The origin of my revolt against the powerful was my horror at the tortures inflicted on animals."
"What is surprising to you, what is appalling to you, is that a woman is daring to defend herself. People aren't accustomed to seeing a woman who dares to think."
"I considered the things, events and people of the past. I thought about the behavior of our friends of the Commune: they were scrupulous, so afraid of exceeding their authority, that they never threw their full energies into anything but the loss of their own lives. I quickly came to the conclusion that good men in power are incompetent, just as bad men are evil, and therefore it is impossible for liberty ever to be associated with any form of power whatsoever."
"They keep talking to us about liberty: There is the liberty of speech with five years of prison at the end. In England, the meeting would have taken place; in France, they have not even made a legal admonition in order to let the crowd retreat, which would have left without resistance. People are dying from hunger, and they do not even have the right to say that they are dying from hunger."
"It is indeed time that this old world dies since no one is safe any longer... We can no longer live like our Stone Age ancestors, nor as in the past century, since the series of inventions, since the discoveries of science have brought the certainty that all production will increase a hundredfold when these innovations will be used for the general good, instead of letting just a handful of vultures help themselves in order to starve the rest."
"Science will bring forth harvests in the desert; the energy of the tempests and whirlpools will carve paths through the mountains. Undersea boats will discover lost continents. Electricity will carry ships of the air above the icy poles. The ideas of Liberty, Equality, and Justice will finally burst into flame. Each individual will live his integral part within humankind as a whole. Progress being infinite, transformations will be perpetual."
Louise Michel belonged to the Scottish Rite.
Louise Michel loved animals of every kind and always kept numerous pets. The unthinking cruelty of the peasants toward animals sickened her. The other trait was her habit of giving away to the needy whatever might be at hand, whether hers or not. She seemed devoid of any proprietary sense and as a child would steal food or money from her grandparents (who were in narrow straits) to give away, even after warnings. Her sympathy for any sufferers, human or animal, simply overrode ordinary prudence or even regard for the generally accepted rights of others.
Louise Michel was a talented teacher, intelligent, informed, imaginative - and unconventional. In her Mémoires, written after she had become a famous revolutionary, she portrayed herself as, even in Haute-Marne, an outspoken Republican and hence often in trouble with Emperor Napoleon III's officials. For example, she had her pupils sing the forbidden "Marseillais," told them not to pray for the emperor's health as they had been taught, and was reproved by the prefect of Haute-Marne himself for writing a piece in the local paper implying that Napoleon III was a new Domitian, a persecuting Roman emperor. Yet the authorities repeatedly granted her permission to open schools and furnished her with letters of recommendation, which they surely would not have done had her opinions and behavior been as politically "advanced" as she later asserted. In fact, her opinions evolved over a long time, for it is not clear that she became a Republican before the 1860s.
