Eulalie Papavoine (born 11 November 1846 in Auxerre and died 24 May 1875 in Châlons-en-Champagne). She was a Parisian seamstress. She participated in the

Paris Commune The Paris Commune (french: Commune de Paris, ) was a revolutionary government that seized power in Paris, the capital of France, from 18 March to 28 May 1871. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, the French National Guard had defended ...

as an ambulance nurse.

Biography

Paris Commune

Eulalie Papavoine was unmarried and lived with Rémy Ernest Balthazar, a journeyman engraver, who was a corporal in the 135th battalion of the National Guard. She had a child with him. During the Paris Commune, she followed him as an ambulance nurse to battles at Neuilly, Issy, Vanves, and Levallois.

Arrest and trial

Arrested after

Bloody Week The ''semaine sanglante'' ("") was a weeklong battle in Paris from 21 to 28 May 1871, during which the French Army recaptured the city from the Paris Commune. This was the final battle of the Paris Commune. Following the Treaty of Frankfurt ...

, Papavoine was imprisoned at Satory, identified as a probable ringleader alongside Louise Michel and

Victorine Gorget Victorine Gorget, born on April 20, 1843, in Paris and died on October 11, 1901, in Nouméa, was a laundress and a political activist during the Paris Commune of 1871. Biography Daughter of Edmet Gorget and Éléonore Cochon, Victorine Gorget ...

, then taken with about forty other women to the Chantiers prison at Versailles. Eventually she was taken to a detention centre with very difficult conditions. The trial of the "

pétroleuses ''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 loyali ...

" began on 3 September 1871. Papavoine was accused, alongside Léontine Suétens, of having stolen three handkerchiefs from a house on the

Rue de Solférino Rue de Solférino is a street in the Left Bank area of Paris. It was most commonly heard as a reference to the headquarters of the French Socialist Party, which were located there until 2018. The street is named after the Battle of Solferino, fou ...

. A first aid centre had been set up in the house, to treat those injured in an explosion on Avenue Rapp. Papavoine rescued the wounded, gave them first aid at Solférino, and then took them to the Hôpital de la Charité. She had no previous convictions, and denied participating in the fires in the neighbourhood, but admitted to having organized the first aid centre in the house on the Rue de Solférino. Interrogated by the presiding judge, she responded:

Sentence

On 4 September 1871 she was sentenced to deportation to a walled fortress and to the loss of her civil rights (""). While imprisoned, she was authorized to marry Rémy Balthazar, who was detained in the docks at Satory, to legitimize her son, who was four years old.

Victor Hugo Victor-Marie Hugo (; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romantic writer and politician. During a literary career that spanned more than sixty years, he wrote in a variety of genres and forms. He is considered to be one of the great ...

took up the defence, partly of Théophile Ferré and Louis Rossel, but also of three women: Léontine Suétens, Eulalie Papavoine, and Joséphine Marchais. He considered the insurgents to be revolutionary fighters, not criminals under common law. Regarding the three women, he also raised the social question: Eulalie Papavoine died in the asylum of Châlons-sur-Marne on 24 May 1875.

Legacy

Eulalie Papavoine was assimilated into the myth of the revolutionary prostitute, and also into the myth of the alleged arsonist " pétroleuse".

Myth of the revolutionary prostitute

For academic Roger Bellet, Flaubert recalls a myth, developed after the

French Revolution of 1848 The French Revolution of 1848 (french: Révolution française de 1848), also known as the February Revolution (), was a brief period of civil unrest in France, in February 1848, that led to the collapse of the July Monarchy and the foundation ...

, of the iconic prostitute of the great revolutionary days, but diverts it. The living allegory of Liberty is no longer, for Flaubert, innocent: she is the terrifying symbol of the "public woman".

Myth of the pétroleuse

Gravure_du_procès_des_pétroleuses_du_faubourg_Saint-Germain_1871_-_Archives_nationales_(France)

Bertall Charles Albert d'Arnoux (Charles Constant Albert Nicolas, Vicomte d'Arnoux, Count of Limoges-Saint-Saëns), known as ''Bertall'' (or Bertal, an anagram of Albert) or Tortu-Goth (December 18, 1820 in Paris – March 24, 1882 in Soyons) was a Fre ...

, the caricaturist of the Second Empire, presented her in his series on the women of the Commune as "the anti-woman of the 19th century (neither a good mother nor a good wife), a hysteric who drank and smoked." The trial of Eulalie Papavoine and her co-accused was transcribed into serials in summer and fall of 1871. According to archivist Pierre Casselle, the accounts depicted the accused to elicit repulsion and not pity. Their physical portraits enhanced the moral indignity: "Rétiffe, Marchais, Bocquin, Suétens, Papavoine, are presented ..with turned-up noses, vicious eyes, weasel-headed, with ribbons and dirty hair, and with faces ravaged by debauchery." Louise Michel wrote in her ''Mémoires'' that an unfortunate homonym with the criminal Louis-Auguste Papavoine was the cause of her arrest: "Eulalie Papavoine was, by the accident of her name, condemned to forced labor; she was not even related to the legendary Papavoine, but they were too happy to make that name ring out." According to

Édith Thomas Édith Thomas (23 January 1909, Montrouge – 7 December 1970, Paris) was a French novelist, archivist, historian, and journalist. A bisexual pioneer of women's history, she reputedly inspired a character of the erotic novel '' Story of O''.Dor ...

, "the repression did not only strike the combatants who were captured while bearing arms .. It struck at random. Any poor woman was suspect." Jean Jaurès also wrote that no proof could be found to link the accused pétroleuses to the fires. A street in

Savigny-le-Temple Savigny-le-Temple () is a commune in the Seine-et-Marne Department of France in the Île-de-France in north-central France. It is located in the south-eastern suburbs of Paris, from the center of Paris. It is the largest commune in the "new town ...

bears the name of Eulalie Papavoine.

References

Bibliography

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Papavoine, Eulalie French people who died in prison custody Women in war 1875 deaths Communards 1846 births Prisoners who died in French detention