Federated Legion of Women

The 12th arrondissement was very involved in the communard movement. Its mayor, Philippe, who was also elected to the Commune Council, was especially implicated in the hunt for deserters of the National Guard. Alongside Auguste Audebrant, the police commissioner for the Quartier des Quinze-Vingts,[2] and Jules Montels, colonel of the 12th legion of the National Guard,[3] Philippe was the head of a military commission that sat at the town hall, and of the "Committee of la rue d'Aligre".[4]

In the 12th arrondissement, Club Éloi was the nerve centre of revolutionary action (during the Commune, clubs were places of exchange and political power, accessible to all). Elected Commune officials, town hall functionaries, National Guard officers, and many women all took part in debates there.[5] At the end of April, a Committee of Republican Women was formed and recognized by the arrondissement authorities. Among the committee's members were Julie Magot and possibly Adélaïde Valentin, both of whom would later join the Federated Legion of Women. Valentin was also one of the founders of the Union des femmes pour la défense de Paris et les soins aux blessés, a major movement in the organization of women's forces.[6]

On 10 May 1871, the day after he took up his post as colonel of the 12th legion of the National Guard (that is, the Fédérés of the 12th arrondissement), Jules Montels announced the "first company of volunteer citizen women". It is likely that the group had already arisen from the local Union des femmes, and that this announcement "was simply a recognition of official patronage."[5] Furthermore, women had already been pursuing deserters independently, and continued to do so after the foundation of the legion.[4] The announcement poster read: "To the National Guards of the 12th Legion. [...] You have been given a great example: the citizens, heroic women, filled with the righteousness of our cause, demanded arms from the Committee of Public Safety to defend, like all of us, the Commune and the Republic." Their function was specified: the women would disarm deserters "publicly, in front of their battalion", then "these men, unworthy of the republic, will be taken to prison by the citizens who disarmed them."[4]

"The Colonel" by Bertall in 1871 in Les Communeux : Types, caractères, costumes.

Witnesses' accounts of the number of women in the legion vary from 20 to 100. They wore a uniform with a red armband and belt and, above all, they were armed. The presence of weapons was attested by external witnesses — interested parties denied it before the court martial — who mentioned the presence of revolvers and personal rifles. The volunteers were organized militarily, with women officers at their head, and many witness accounts, preserved in the dossiers of the courts martial, attest to many parades in front of the Place de la Bastille next to the town hall of the 12th arrondissement.[4]

The unit was directed by Colonel Adélaïde Valentin, a worker, and her second-in-command, Captain Louise Neckbecker, a trim-maker.[7] Several witnesses agree on the role of "Colonel Valentin", but no direct record has been found about her actions.[4] Marie Catherine Rogissart, a seamstress, was the standard-bearer; she was also vice-president of the Club Éloi.[8]

The women were charged with arresting deserters or reporting them to the National Guard.[4] The purpose was for deserting men to be publicly humiliated by women who had taken up arms. Their armed actions were to remain behind the front of combat, turned toward the interior of the city and supported by the men's forces.[4] Many men testified to having been arrested by the National Guard following denunciation by these women; they described them as "shrews" or "terrors in the neighbourhood".[4]

The women of the Legion regularly met at Club Éloi,[4] held at Saint-Éloi Church in the 12th arrondissement, where they organized nine meetings after 10 May. They called on other women to join them;[4] several of their speeches were remarked upon by Paul Fontoulieu, author of Les Églises de Paris sous la Commune, who was an anti-communard but generally reliable witness.[4][6] Among others, Colonel Adélaïde Valentin would have threatened men with weapons if they did not rejoin the front.[4]

Les pétroleuses du faubourg Saint-Germain devant le 4e conseil de guerre, L'Univers illustré, engraving from 1871. Archives nationales, Paris.

According to the military dossiers of the women supposed to have been members of the legion, and those of the women mentioned in turn in those dossiers, historian Quentin Deluermoz concluded that members of the Federated Legion of Women were essentially from working-class backgrounds, but were often linked through their husband or their family to political power in the 12th arrondissement.[4] For example, one of the women, Julie Marie Magot, née Armand,[9] was married to the mayor's delegate, Louis Magot.[4]

Except for a few known only as names — Ménard, Ciron, Lambin[4] — Julie Magot, Louise Neckbecker, Marie Rogissart, and Adélaïde Valentin are the only historically attested members of the legion.[8] After the defeat of the Commune, they were subjected to heavy sentences: Julie Magot and her husband were sentenced to prison,[10] Louise Neckbecker to five years in prison and ten years of surveillance,[11] and Marie Catherine Rogissart to seven years of forced labour in New Caledonia.[12] The fate of Adélaïde Valentin is unknown.[13]

• Women in the Paris Commune