Blanche Lefebvre (or Lefevre) (1847 - 23 May 1871) was a communard active in the Batignolles quarter in the 17th arrondissement of Paris. She died defending the Paris Commune during "bloody week".
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Blanche Lefebvre (or Lefevre) (1847 - 23 May 1871) was a communard active in the Batignolles quarter in the 17th arrondissement of Paris. She died defending the Paris Commune during "bloody week".
Blanche Lefebvre was a laundress at the Sainte-Marie des Batignolles laundry. She lived at 34, rue des Maris, in the 10th arrondissement. [1]
During the Paris Commune, she was a member of the Club de la Révolution sociale , which was founded on 3 May 1871 in the church of Sainte-Marie des Batignolles ; [1] her husband was the secretary. [2] She was also a member of the executive committee of the Union des femmes pour la défense de Paris et les soins aux blessés ("Women's Union for the Defence of Paris and the Care of the Wounded"). [3] She was known to always wear a red sash and carry a revolver. [1]
Abbot Paul Fontoulieu, a strongly anti-communard but otherwise generally reliable contemporary, [4] described Lefebvre as the "queen" of the podium at the Batignolles - and as a "terrible woman", a "fanatic" who "loved the insurrection as others love a man," [5] capable of making any sacrifice for the Commune. He compared her to Théroigne de Méricourt and Charlotte Corday (not, in his opinion, a flattering comparison), and related a story in which she shot dead a Fédéré captain on 22 May for his cowardice in the face of the Commune's looming defeat. [6]
Lefebvre was one of the women who participated in the defence of Place Blanche on 23 May 1871, along with Élisabeth Dmitrieff, Nathalie Lemel, Malvina Poulain , and Julia Béatrix Euvrie. [7] She was killed fighting Versailles troops later that day, on the rue des Dames in the 17th arrondissement, [2] on the Batignolles barricade. [8]
A square was created in 2012 with the provisional designation "BY/17". In June 2013, Paris city hall named it "Place Blanche Lefebvre". [8]
The 17th arrondissement of Paris is one of the 20 arrondissements of the capital city of France. In spoken French, it is referred to as le dix-septième.
Pétroleuses were, according to popular rumours at the time, female supporters of the Paris Commune, accused of burning down much of Paris during the last days of the Commune in May 1871. During May, when Paris was being recaptured by loyalist Versaillais troops, rumours circulated that lower-class women were committing arson against private property and public buildings, using bottles full of petroleum or paraffin which they threw into cellar windows, in a deliberate act of spite against the government. Many Parisian buildings, including the Hôtel de Ville, the Tuileries Palace, the Palais de Justice and many other government buildings were in fact set afire by the soldiers of the Commune during the last days of the Commune, prompting the press and Parisian public opinion to blame the pétroleuses.
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.
Elisabeth Dmitrieff was a Russian revolutionary and feminist activist. The illegitimate daughter of a Russian aristocrat and a German nurse, she had a comfortable upbringing but was marginalized within the Russian aristocracy due to the circumstances of her birth, leading to her interest in Marxism and the radical ideas of Nikolay Chernyshevsky. She entered into a marriage of convenience with Mikhail Tomanovski, a colonel who had retired early due to illness, in order to access her inheritance, which she used to fund revolutionary causes such as the Russian-language journal Narodnoye delo. Her money and married status allowed her to leave Russia and study in Geneva, where she participated in founding the Geneva section of the International Workingmen's Association. Sent by the Geneva section as an envoy to London, she became close to Karl Marx and his daughter Jenny.
Auguste Prosper Balagny was a French notary and the first mayor of the 17th arrondissement of Paris.
Union des femmes pour la défense de Paris et les soins aux blessés was a women's group during the 1871 Paris Commune. The union organized working women, ensured a market and fair pay for their work, and participated in the defence of Paris against the troops of the Third Republic, particularly at Place Blanche.
Marie Chiffon was a militant republican who served as an ambulance nurse in the Paris Commune in 1871. She was known as "la Capitaine". For her actions during the Commune, she was deported to New Caledonia. She died there in 1882.
André Amédée Gustave Slomszynski, Słomczyński or Slomczynski, known professionally as Slom, was a French painter, engraver, illustrator and cartographer of Polish origin. A former communard, he lived from 1871 to 1880 in exile in Switzerland.
Béatrix Excoffon, born Julia Euvrie or Œuvrie was a militant communard who served as an ambulance nurse during the Paris Commune in 1871. She was vice-president of the Club des Femmes de la Boule Noire, and was known as "the republican".
Marie Catherine Rogissart was a militant communard in the 12th arrondissement during the Paris Commune in 1871. She was a member of Club Éloi and the standard-bearer of the Federated Legion of Women. Arrested and deported to New Caledonia, she chose to remain there after the end of her sentence. In 1929, she was the last surviving communard deportee on the island.
Octavie Tardif, born Boulongne on in Aumale, was a communist activist and member of the International Workers' Association (International), working as a dressmaker in Paris. She was involved in the actions undertaken by women in the Paris Commune, becoming in particular one of the leaders of the Union des femmes pour la défense de Paris et les soins aux blessés created by Elisabeth Dmitrieff and Nathalie Lemel.
Louise Pioger, also known as Louise Quitrime, was born on June 19, 1848, in Mezières-sous-Ballon, France, and died on December 9, 1920 in Garches. She was a woman laborer in the clothing and textile industry. She made waistcoats and was also an anarchist author and communard active with Women in the Paris Commune. She is known for her nursery rhymes book titled Rondes pour récréations enfantines, which was for a long time wrongly attributed to Louise Michel.
The Federated Legion of Women was an armed unit composed of women active during the Paris Commune in May 1871. It was founded in the 12th arrondissement, with the intended mission of hunting down deserters. The legion had uniforms, parades, and a standard-bearer, and was led by two officers, Colonel Adélaïde Valentin and Captain Louise Neckbecker. There were an estimated 20-100 members, most from working-class backgrounds. They held and attended meetings in Parisian political clubs, where they incited citizens to take up arms. After the defeat of the Commune, arrested members were given heavy sentences, including forced labour and deportation.
Adélaïde Valentin, also known as Colonel Valentin, was a labourer and communard. She was, during the last month of the Paris Commune, the colonel of the Federated Legion of Women.
The Paris Commune was an insurrectionary period in the history of Paris that lasted just over two months, from 18 March 1871 to the Semaine sanglante that ended on 28 May 1871. This insurrection refused to recognize the government of the National Assembly of 1871, which had just been elected by universal male suffrage. Many women took active roles in the events, and are known as "communardes". They are important in the history of women's rights in France, particularly with regards to women's emancipation. Equal pay and the first forms of structured organization of women in France appear during this period, in particular the Union des femmes pour la défense de Paris et les soins aux blessés or the Comité de vigilance de Montmartre.
Victorine Gorget, was a laundress and a political activist during the Paris Commune of 1871.
Céleste Hardouin (1832–1904) was a school teacher who advocated for lay education for women.
Marie Ferré (1845–1882) was a French activist involved in the Paris Commune.
The fires of Paris during the Commune were the premeditated destruction of monuments and residential buildings in Paris mainly during Bloody Week, the period when Paris was recaptured by the Versailles army from Sunday, May 21 to Sunday, May 28, 1871.