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Introduction Maternal Societies in the Nineteenth Century At the general assembly of Lyon’s Society for Maternal Charity in March 1847, Madame Delahante, présidente, celebrated the positive social influence of her charitable organization: “Some of these Ladies have also prevented several mothers from placing their children at the Foundling Hospice [Hospice des Enfants-Trouvés]; one of them gave the Maternal Charity’s aid to a wretched woman who had already left two of these children at the Enfants-Trouvés and was prepared to do the same with the third; through her advice [conseils] and through her assistance these three children escaped the unhappy fate of abandoned children and were returned to their family and the dignity of legitimate children.”1 Emphasizing the personal ministrations of the dames administrantes2 whose assistance and “conseils” persuaded the poor mother to keep her newborn and to retrieve two other children from the foundling hospice, Madame Delahante took credit for the happy outcome. And certainly the outcome seemed happy. Still, the impression left by the vignette of a poor woman nonchalantly abandoning two children and ready to leave a third bears considerable nuancing. The account does not linger on the particulars; however, we can assume that this mother lived in one of the poorest sections of Lyon, perhaps in the center of town, between the right bank of the Saône and the left bank of the Rhône rivers. The dame administrante would not have had to travel far with her servant; the elegant Place Bellecour, home to many of the city’s elite families, also lay between the two rivers. We can imagine the scenario. Despite the proximity to her neighborhood , she seems far from her elegant home as she mounts the crooked steps of the dark, dank lodging. The smell from the latrine on the landing is overwhelming. Entering the small attic room, she finds the object of her visit 2 introduction lying on a mattress on the floor, covered in thin, dirty bedclothes, attended by a neighbor who had helped her through childbirth. Her husband, a canut, a weaver, is not present; a victim of the “dead season” in the silk industry, he has left the city in search of temporary employment, or even alms, although proud silk workers were reluctant to beg. The silent loom rises in the corner of the bare room, as clean as an exhausted pregnant woman who had to carry in water could make it. The air is fetid in the closed space; it had been impossible to clean away all the remnants of the recent birth. Our visiting lady had heard about this poor mother from the local bureau de bienfaisance (municipal relief agency). She has already climbed these stairs once before, to encourage the expectant mother to apply to her organization for assistance, giving her the subscription card to present to the society’s secretary-treasurer. Consequently, the poor mother had gone to the home of M. Perret-Lagrive in the ninth month of her pregnancy to give him her registration card, carrying her proof of marriage, along with a certificate of indigence and good behavior issued by the bureau de bienfaisance and her parish priest. She confirmed that she had two living children, omitting the detail that she had been forced to abandon them at the Hospice de la Charité, which receives Lyon’s abandoned children and foundlings, when her husband left town. She had hoped that the 100 francs and other assistance that Lyon’s maternal charity promised would allow her to keep this baby, rather than abandoning it, as well; the 10 francs she received from M. Perret-Lagrive paid the midwife. However, reality set in, then despair. She realized that she could no more support this child than she could the other two, especially in the absence of her husband. With so little food in the cupboard, she was certain that she would not produce the milk necessary to breast-feed her new baby, as she had promised when requesting aid from the Society for Maternal Charity. She has already confided in her neighbor that she plans to abandon this child, as well. The dame administrante has been visiting the homes of the poor since she was a girl accompanying her mother on her charitable rounds; she has been in many garrets like these. Her Catholic faith taught her that she must overcome her repugnance at the odor, the filth, and the poverty she confronts each time...

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