Béatrix Excoffon, born Julia Euvrie or Œuvrie (10 July 1849 - 30 December 1916) was a militant communard who served as an ambulance nurse during the Paris Commune in 1871.[1] She was vice-president of the Club des Femmes de la Boule Noire, and was known as "the republican".[2]
Life
editExcoffon was born in Cherbourg on 10 July 1849.[3] In 1870, she was living in Paris with her partner, François, a printer. They had two children.[1]
In La Commune, Louise Michel relates that Sophie Poirier, Blin, and Excoffon asked her to join them in creating the Comité de vigilance de Montmartre.[4] That committee then organized the Club des Femmes de la Boule Noire, and Excoffon became its vice-president. Sophie Poirier became its president.[2] She requisitioned an apartment at 32 rue des Acacias in Paris, where she lived, for the use of the Vigilance Committee.[3]
At a meeting of the club of the Salle Ragache at the beginning of April, she said, "there are enough of us to attend to the wounded."[5] On 3 April 1871, Excoffon took part in a women's march to Versailles, where the National Assembly was located, reminiscent of the march of October 1789.[1] Excoffon set up a mobile ambulance at Fort d'Issy for the Enfants-Perdus for a fortnight.[6] Excoffon's ambulance[7][1] was joined by Alix Payen, who first became an ambulance nurse on the day her husband was wounded in the eye.[8]
During Bloody Week, when the Versailles troops entered Paris, Excoffon defended place Blanche at the barricades on 23 May 1871[1] along with Élisabeth Dmitrieff, Nathalie Lemel, Blanche Lefebvre, and Malvina Poulain, also an ambulance nurse.[9] 120 women delayed General Clinchant's troops before retreating, exhausted and low on ammunition, to place Pigalle.[10][11]
After the end of the Commune, she was detained at Satory,[3] along with Louise Michel.[12] The 4th Court Martial condemned her to deportation to a fortress on 13 October 1871.[1] She was then imprisoned in Auberive.[3][13] Louise Michel asked Victor Hugo to intervene on her behalf, since her parents and brother-in-law had died recently.[13] Her sentence was reduced to ten years of imprisonment on 28 March 1872, and reduced further by one year on 15 August 1876.[3] Finally, Excoffon made an act of submission and her sentence was commuted, resulting in her release on 26 November 1878.[12][1]
Excoffon and her partner married on 5 September 1874.[1]
References
editNotes
edit- ^ a b c d e f g h "Excoffon Béatrix [née Euvrie Julia]". Le Maitron. 26 July 2009. Retrieved 2 September 2020.
- ^ a b Fauré 2004, p. 378.
- ^ a b c d e Rey, Gayat & Pepino 2013, p. 123.
- ^ Louise Michel (1898). "Les femmes de 70". La Commune (PDF). Paris: Editions Stock, collection Stock+plus, 1978. p. 174..
- ^ "Quelques clubs sous le Siège et la Commune - Maitron". maitron.fr. Retrieved 2021-03-09..
- ^ Thomas 1963, p. 158-159; Thomas 1966, p. 137.
- ^ Dolorès Martín Moruno (2014). ""Le temps des cerises": The Ambulance Women in the Paris Commune". Bulletin of the UK Association for the History of Nursing. 3 (3): 44 à 56..
- ^ Michèle Audin (2018). "Lettres d'Alix Payen (3) Alix au fort d'Issy". La Commune de Paris..
- ^ Bibia Pavard; Florence Rochefort; Michelle Zancarini-Fournel (2020-09-03). Ne nous libérez pas, on s'en charge (in French). La Découverte. p. 543. ISBN 978-2-348-05567-6. Retrieved 2020-10-28..
- ^ Linton, Marisa; Hivet, Christine (1997). "Les femmes et la Commune de Paris de 1871". Revue Historique. 298 (1 (603)): 44. ISSN 0035-3264. JSTOR 40956129. Retrieved 2020-10-29..
- ^ Thomas, Edith (1971). "The Women of the Commune". The Massachusetts Review. 12 (3): 416. ISSN 0025-4878. JSTOR 25088134. Retrieved 2020-10-30..
- ^ a b Michel, Louise (2000). Histoire de ma vie. Presses Universitaires Lyon. p. 170. ISBN 978-2-7297-0648-7. Retrieved 2020-10-27.
- ^ a b Thomas 1980, p. 132.
Bibliography
edit- Fauré, Christine (2004). Political and Historical Encyclopedia of Women. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-135-45691-7.
- Rey, Claudine; Gayat, Annie; Pepino, Sylvie (2013). Petit dictionnaire des femmes de la Commune: Les oubliées de l'histoire (in French). Éditions Le bruit des autres.
- Thomas, Édith (1980). Louise Michel. Translated by Williams, Penelope. Montreal: Black Rose Books Ltd. ISBN 978-0-919619-07-4.
- "Excoffon Béatrix [née Euvrie Julia]". Le Maitron. 26 July 2009. Retrieved 7 March 2022.
- Thomas, Édith (1963). Les Pétroleuses (in French). Éditions Gallimard.
- Thomas, Édith (1966). The Women Incendiaries. Translated by Atkinson, James; Atkinson, Starr. New York: George Braziller, Inc.
