Blessed Motherhood, Bitter Fruit: Nelly Roussel and the Politics of Female Pain in Third Republic France

• Notes
• Chapter
• Johns Hopkins University Press
• pp. 251-289
• View Citation
• Additional Information

NOTES

Abbreviations

Introduction

Epigraph: Letourneau, Évolution de la morale, 463, quoted by Émile Darnaud to describe Roussel in his preface to her volume of speeches Quelques lances rompues pour nos libertés (1910), 3.

1. Cova, “Féminisme et natalité”; Armogathe and Albistur in Roussel, Éternelle sacrifiée; and Accampo, “Private Life, Public Image,” focus on or include biographical information. Information about Roussel has also appeared in Albistur and Armogathe, Histoire du féminisme français, vol. 2; Klejman and Rochefort, Égalité en marche; Bard, Filles de Marianne; Waelti-Walters and Hause, eds., Feminisms of the Belle Epoque; McMillan, Housewife or Harlot and France and Women; and Offen, European Feminisms.

2. On the definition of the “new biography,” as well as bibliographic suggestions and examples, see Margadant, “Constructing Selves in Historical Perspective,” in New Biography, ed. id., 1–32, and other essays in the same volume.

3. Under the Civil Code of 1804, a Frenchwoman had few rights: she had to obey her husband, assume his nationality, and reside wherever he desired; she could not participate in a lawsuit or serve as a witness in court; she had no control over property or any income she generated; she had no control over her children. In 1893, single and separated women gained full legal status; in 1897, adult women gained the right to serve as witnesses to civil acts, and in 1907, married women were given the right to control their own wages. But another series of laws restricted their right to work.

4. McLaren, History of Contraception, 5; Linda Gordon, Moral Property of Women; Riddle, Eve’s Herbs, 6–8. See also Riddle, Contraception and Abortion, and Laqueur, Making Sex.

5. Steinbrugge, Moral Sex, 28; Laqueur, Making Sex; and Schiebinger, Mind Has No Sex? and Nature’s Body.

6. On “republican motherhood,” see Kerber, Women of the Republic, 11. The phrase is probably overused, however, and the underlying assumptions are being reexamined. Desan, Family on Trial, challenges the literature arguing that the Revolution relegated women to republican motherhood and shows that women in Normandy successfully used republican ideology to challenge domestic inferiority. See also Hesse, Other Enlightenment; Desan, “Constitutional Amazons,” in Recreating Authority in Revolutionary France, ed. Ragan and Williams, 92; Godineau, Women of Paris; and Landes, Women and the Public Sphere and Visualizing the Nation.

7. McLaren, Birth Control in Nineteenth-Century England; id., History of Contraception, 181–82; Riddle, Eve’s Herbs.

8. Hunt, Family Romance and “Unstable Boundaries”; Scott, Only Paradoxes to Offer; Thompson, “Creating Boundaries.” On women’s participation in the Revolution and the images and mythologies to which their participation gave rise, see Godineau, Women of Paris. But see also Desan’s counterargument in Family on Trial.

9. Goethe, Faust, pt. 2 (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1965), 288. The éternel féminin has been a frequent trope in France, to the point where Le Robert Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, 1: 1324, s.v. éternel, cites the phrase as exemplifying “ce qui semble ne pas évoluer” (that which seems not to evolve). On the use of the concept in literature, see Michaud, Muse et madone and “Artistic and Literary Idolatries.” This argument about the pervasiveness of the concept is not, however, intended to dispute the fact that large numbers of women achieved some measure of liberation—at least ideologically, if not practically—with each revolution. Hesse, Other Enlightenment, and Margadant, ed., New Biography, are among many examples that show how unstable “femininity” was, and how individual women were able to negotiate identities beyond traditional definitions of womanhood.

10. Moses, French Feminism in the Nineteenth Century; McMillan, France and Women, 135. On the mythology surrounding women and the Commune, see esp. Gullickson, Unruly Women.

11. Jordanova, Sexual Visions, 79–83; Barthes, Michelet, 147–49; Stone, “Republican Brotherhood”; and see also Stone, Sons of the Revolution. For other works on the influence of Michelet on gender, see Jean Borie, “Une Gynocologie passionée,” in Misérable et glorieuse, ed Aron, 153–89.

12. For examples of how this ideology became incorporated into the thinking of social reformers, see Le Play, On Family, Work, and Social Change; Coffey, Léon Harmel, 110–12; Simon, Ouvrière; Scott, “‘L’Ouvrière! Mot impie, sordide …’”; Sanford Elwitt, Third Republic Defended, 73–75. Though this conception of womanhood dominated the male imagination, social reformers did not, indeed, could not, institute practical change based on a single conception of womanhood. See Accampo et al., Gender and the Politics of Social Reform.

13. Burton, Holy Tears, Holy Blood, 19.

14. Chesnais, Demographic Transition, table 11.1, p. 323.

15. As cited in Cova, “Au service de l’église,” 226.

16. Dupâquier, ed., Histoire de la population française, 3: 3, and Annuaire statistique de la France, 1966, 70–71, as cited in Cova, “Au service de l’église,” table 3, p. 226, and table 4, p. 227, respectively; Zeldin, Anxiety and Hypocrisy, 185, 70–71, and Ambition and Love, 186.

17. Cole, Power of Large Numbers; Nye, Crime, Madness, and Politics, and “Degeneration and the Medical Model”; Pick, Faces of Degeneration.

18. As paraphrased in Merriman, History of Modern Europe, 844.

19. McMillan, France and Women, 106; Adler, Secrets d’alcôve; Stewart, For Health and Beauty, 98–105.

20. See, e.g., Berlanstein, Daughters of Eve, esp. chaps. 7–9; Rearick, Pleasures of the Belle Epoque; Waldberg, Eros in La Belle Époque; for an alternative to woman as “Nature”—indeed as an erotic “machine,” see Garelick, Rising Star, esp. 99–127; Michaud, “Artistic and Literary Idolatries,” 128.

21. Roberts, Disruptive Acts, 4. This book is the most recent and fullest analysis of the New Woman in fin de siècle France. See also Tilburg, “Reimagining the Republican Ideal”; Mansker, “‘Pistol Virgin.’”

22. A number of works have emphasized the massive impacts military defeat, fertility decline, and the Paris Commune had on the cultural and political self-image of the French, creating “crises” in both masculinity and femininity. In addition to works cited above (Nye; Gullickson; Accampo, Fuchs, and Stewart), see McLaren, Sexuality and Social Order; Offen, “Depopulation, Nationalism, and Feminism”; Berenson, Trial of Madame Caillaux. Burton, Holy Tears, Holy Blood, argues that political upheaval helped contribute to a culture of female self-sacrifice.

23. Sontag, Illness as Metaphor; Barnes, Making of a Social Disease.

24. NR to HG, Apr. 8, 1905. Roussel’s archive, the Fonds Roussel, is in nine cartons, plus two or three separated dossiers, in the Bibliothèque Marguerite Durand. The Roussel-Godet correspondence is mostly in carton 6, but the FR list does not always accurately represent the somewhat haphazard contents of the cartons.

25. NR, “Encore le ‘droit de la chair,’” L’Action, Apr. 24, 1908, reprinted in Roussel, Quelques lances rompues, 141–42. Unless otherwise indicated, all newspaper articles by or about Roussel cited in this book come from her press clippings in FR, cartons 5 and (mostly) 7.

26. Philinte, “Causerie de la semaine,” Express (Mulhouse), Apr. 21 and 22, 1907.

27. Davy, Une Femme, 242–43. “As a young woman … Beauvoir was certainly aware of the work of the birth-control, or neo-Malthusian, movement in France. She particularly admired Nelly Roussel,” Felicia Gordon writes (Integral Feminist, 243n13).

One • Conversion Experiences

Epigraph: BMD, FR, carton 7, “Cahiers d’écolière.”

1. Gemie, Women and Schooling in France, 60–61.

2. Gullickson, Unruly Women, 223.

3. Ibid., esp. 176–83; Przyblyski, “Between Seeing and Believing”; Christiansen, Paris Babylon; Eichner, Surmounting the Barricades.

4. Berenson, Trial of Madame Caillaux; Pick, Faces of Degeneration; Nye, Crime, Madness, and Politics, 119–70.

5. Williams, Dream Worlds; Miller, Bon Marché; Rearick, Pleasures of the Belle Epoque; Schwartz, Spectacular Realities; Tiersten, Marianne in the Market.

6. BMD, FR, carton 7, “Cahiers d’écolière.” See also Clark, Schooling the Daughters, 64. Recording morale maxims in notebooks was a typical practice. On the inculcation of a gendered moral system, see also Margadant, Madame Le Professeur, 32–37.

7. BMD, “Correspondance MG,” MG, Oct. 13, 1980; interview with Michel Robin, June 7, 1997; Armogathe and Albistur, preface in Roussel, Éternelle sacrifiée, 8.

8. NR, “Aux libres-penseurs,” Almanach de la libre-pensée, 1903.

9. The New Oxford Companion to French Literature (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), ed. Peter France, 666; FR, carton 7, “Confidences,” 1889 and 1898.

10. FR, carton 4, dossiers “Théâtre” and “Jeux.”

11. FR, carton 4, Nelly Roussel “La Soeur de Comte Jean: Drame en quatre actes et cinq tableaux, en prose.”

12. FR, carton 4, NR, “La Passion du jeu.”

13. Roussel’s tropes imitate those in the domestic novels Bonnie Smith analyzes in Ladies of the Leisure Class, 187–213. The themes of “metaphorical incest” and antipatriarchal sentiment are also similar to those analyzed in Hunt, Family Romance, 127–31.

14. FR, carton 7, “Confidences.”

15. Clark, Schooling the Daughters, 9, 14, 25, 31–32, 34, 46–47, 68.

16. Ibid.; Martin-Fugier, Bourgeoise; Armogathe and Albistur, preface in Roussel, Eternelle sacrifiée.

17. Clark, Schooling the Daughters, 52; Winock, “Jeanne d’Arc”; Darrow, French Women and the First World War, 27; Warner, Joan of Arc.

18. Pope, “Immaculate and Powerful”; Bellanger et al., eds., Histoire générale de la presse française, 3: 335.

19. Clark, Schooling the Daughters, 32, 37, 39

20. Pope, “Immaculate and Powerful.”

21. Agulhon, Marianne au pouvoir. On Marie-Antoinette, see Goodman, ed., Marie-Antoinette.

22. Armogathe and Albistur, preface in Roussel, Éternelle sacrifiée, 8–9; FR, carton 5, 1893 agenda; carton 6, correspondence, NR to Thomas Nel; carton 4, manuscript biography of Roussel, written by her husband, Henri Godet c. 1903 and, in the third person, biography by Roussel herself c. 1911.

23. Berlanstein, Daughters of Eve; FR, carton 4, Roussel, manuscript biography of herself.

24. Roberts, “Acting Up,” 1110–11.

25. NR to Thomas Nel, Aug. 2, 1896; for another example, NR to Thomas Nel, Mar. 1, 1897.

26. Armogathe and Albistur, preface to Roussel, L’Éternelle sacrifiée, 9.

27. FR, carton 4, HG, manuscript biography of Roussel.

28. Bellanger et al., eds., Histoire générale de la presse française, 3: 344.

29. Agulhon, French Republic, 89.

30. FR, carton 4, HG, manuscript biography of Roussel.

31. I thank Christiane Demeulenaere-Douyère for the photograph of La Maternité.

32. FR, carton 4, HG, manuscript biography of Roussel.

33. FR, carton 7, HG, “Nelly Roussel, 5 Janvier 1878–18 Décembre 1922: Souvenirs,” Mère éducatrice, no. 11 (November 1923): 147–48.

34. FR, carton 4, HG, manuscript biography of Roussel.

35. Interview with Michel Robin, June 7, 1997; HG, “Nelly Roussel.”

36. FR, carton 7, “Confidences,” Feb. 7, 1889.

37. HG, “Nelly Roussel.”

38. HG, manuscript biography.

39. HG, “Nelly Roussel.”

40. APP, Ba 1651 dossier 59480, police report, Dec. 25, 1901.

41. Réquillard, Initiation des femmes, 144–47.

42. Mercier, Universités populaires; Weisz, Emergence of Modern Universities in France, 311–14; Rebérioux, République radicale? 47–49; Elwitt, Third Republic Defended, 226–47. For an example of right-wing criticism, see A. de Boisandré, “L’Enseignement laïque: Les Universités populaires,” Libre Parole, Oct. 30, 1903; see also Chapter 2 in this volume.

43. APP, Ba 1651, dossier 59480, report of police agent “Foureur,” Dec. 6, 1901; FR, carton 4, HG, manuscript biography of Roussel.

44. FR, carton 4, manuscrits divers, NR, “Impressions d’un jour de mélancolie,” June 1899.

45. The “fear, mystery, and even secrecy surrounding sexual and physical life among all women in the nineteenth century can never be overemphasized,” Bonnie Smith writes (Ladies of the Leisure Class, 82). On childbirth, see Stewart, For Health and Beauty, 112–29.

46. Valici-Bosio, Mère et l’enfant, 63. Thebaud, Quand nos grand-mères donnaient la vie, 178.

47. Loudon, Death in Childbirth, 84–106, and “Childbirth.” The three commonest causes of death from childbirth were puerperal fever (33 to 50 percent), pregnancy-induced hypertension (20 percent), and hemorrhage (15–20 percent).

48. Rich, Of Woman Born, 166; Villani, with Ryan, Motherhood at the Crossroads.

49. Stewart, For Health and Beauty, 126; Thebaud, Quand nos grand-mères donnaient la vie, 254; Knibiehler and Fouquet, Histoire des mères, 210.

50. Yvonne and Fouquet, Histoire des mères, 212.

51. Bonnie Smith, Ladies of the Leisure Class, 107.

52. Finney, Story of Motherhood, 156. See also Rich, Of Woman Born, 156.

53. Bossuet, XIe Élévation sur les mystères, quoted in McMillan, France and Women, 4 (originally quoted in P. Hoffman, La Femme dans la pensée des lumières [Paris: Orphys, 1977], 18).

54. Gélis, History of Childbirth, 155.

55. Finney, Story of Motherhood, 175.

56. Knibiehler and Fouquet, 212. For some of the realities of motherhood, particularly with regard to social policies, see Fuchs, Abandoned Children and Poor and Pregnant in Paris.

57. Nye, Masculinity and Male Codes of Honor, 218–19.

58. Thebaud, Quand nos grands-mères donnaient la vie, 253–62.

59. Ibid.; Stewart, For Health and Beauty, 129.

60. Scarry, Body in Pain, 18–19; Porter, “Pain and Suffering.”

Two • Mother and Missionary

Epigraph: Antoine Godeau, Instructions et prières chrestiennes pour toutes sortes de personnes (Paris: Vve Camusat et P. Le Petit, 1646), cited in Gélis, History of Childbirth, 155.

1. Cova, Maternité et droits des femmes, 29–30. The censuses of 1890, 1891, and 1892 showed a drop in the number of births. In 1895, births numbered 834,000 and deaths 852,000.

2. Ibid., 31; Cole, Power of Large Numbers, 191–94.

3. Cole, Power of Large Numbers, 193–202.

4. Jacques Bertillon, “Le Problème de la population: Le Programme de l’Alliance nationale pour l’accroissement de la population française,” Revue politique et parlementaire 12 (1897): 531–74; Offen, “Depopulation, Nationalism, and Feminism.” Withdrawal remained the primary contraceptive method, giving men control over the process; the second most common method to prevent births was abortion, clearly the woman’s domain. See Sohn, Chrysalides, 2: 803–46; id., Du premier baiser à l’alcôve, 126–35; Adler, Secrets d’alcôve, 116–17; Payer, Medicine and Culture, 50; McLaren, History of Contraception and Sexuality and Social Order, 136–53.

5. FR, dossier 07.

6. FR, carton 4, HG, manuscript biography of Roussel; Noëlie Drous, “Nos pierres noires,” Voix des femmes, Dec. 13, 1923.

7. Offen, “Depopulation, Nationalism, and Feminism.”

8. H. Thulié, “Variétés: La Femme. Fonctions sociales,” Harmonie sociale, no. 26 (Apr. 8, 1893); “Hygiène: L’Allaitement,” Fronde, Apr. 14, 1899; Harlor, “Maternité totale,” ibid., Feb. 20, 1901, all cited in Cova, Maternité et droits des femmes, 35–37, 130.

9. Klejman and Rochefort, Égalité en marche, 138

10. Offen, “Depopulation, Nationalism, Feminism,” 634.

11. Scott, Only Paradoxes to Offer.

12. NR, “Sur l’éducation des jeunes filles,” Paris qui passe, Oct. 29, 1899.

13. Ibid.

14. Klejman and Rochefort, Égalité en marche, 102.

15. Roberts, “Acting Up,” “Feminist Journalism,” and Disruptive Acts; Klejman and Rochefort, Égalité en marche, 129–30. On breast-feeding, see citations in n. 8 above.

16. NR, Derniers combats, 198.

17. APP Ba 1244, dossier on Paul Robin; Demeulenaere-Douyère, Paul Robin, 334, and “Être néo-malthusien”; Giroud, Paul Robin, 10, 111.

18. Giroud, Paul Robin, 36; Demeulenaere-Douyère, Paul Robin, 133–56. See also McLaren, “Revolution and Education.”

19. Demeulenaere-Doyère, Paul Robin, 319.

20. APP Ba 1244. The accusations were apparently based on his stated opinion that older men should sexually initiate young girls, because boys and young men were not up to the task. I have read nothing, either in police reports, newspapers, or secondary sources that specified what exactly Robin did to merit his expulsion, other than promote coeducation.

21. “Notre programme,” Régénération, December 1896.

22. Nye, Crime, Madness, and Politics and “Degeneration and the Medical Model”; Pick, Faces of Degeneration.

23. Ronsin, Grève des ventres, 55.

24. APP, Ba 1244, extract from police report, Apr. 11, 1896.

25. APP, Ba 1244, “Le Congrès féminist,” Débats, Apr. 13, 1896; “Encore Robin,” Grand Journal, Apr. 12, 1896.

26. Klejman and Rochefort, Égalité en marche, 164.

27. APP Ba 381 prov, L.G., “Abominable Propagande,” Peuple française, Jan. 1, 1897; police report, Jan. 16, 1897; Petite République, Jan. 27, 1897; report to prefect, Mar. 5, 1897.

28. Ibid., Moyens d’éviter les grandes familles, January 1896.

29. See esp. Devaldès, Individualité feminine, and Accampo, “Rhetoric of Reproduction.”

30. Armengaud, Les Français et Malthus, 44–47. Dupaquier, “Combiens d’avortements en France avant 1914,” Communications 44 (1986): 87–105, cited in McLaren, History of Contraception, 189n43; McLaren points out that many people in the nineteenth century viewed abortion “as simply one more step on the continuum of fertility-controlling practices” (89). Some women preferred abortion to contraception and believed it to be less immoral. See also McLaren, Sexuality and Social Order, 136–53. Sohn, Du premier baiser à l’alcôve, 133, and Chrysalides, 2: 803–46.

31. APP Ba 381 prov, police report, Apr. 6, 1902. The agent also reported on the growth of the League: in the spring of 1902, it was meeting every first Saturday and third Sunday of each month. Although that attendance was small (only fifteen people), it organized lectures that drew much larger audiences, and subscriptions to the journal rapidly increased.

32. Paul Robin, “Aux gens mariés!” quoted in Ronsin, Grêve des ventres, 54.

33. Régénération, December 1896, quoted in Demeulenaere-Doyère, Paul Robin, 346.

34. FR, carton 4, manuscripts 05, NR, “Causerie sur le féminisme.”

35. See, e.g., NR, “Correspondance,” Républicain de Veron, Dec. 19, 1903.

36. Pateman, “Equality, Difference, Subordination”; Cova, Maternité et droits des femmes, 13–14; Scott, Only Paradoxes to Offer.

37. Scott notes this relationship between law and “nature” in Only Paradoxes to Offer, ix.

38. Colonel Jean Converset, Voix des femmes, Dec. 18, 1924.

39. Godet was cautious about neo-Malthusianism. FR, correspondance from HG to NR, Sept. 1, 1903.

40. See Cole, Power of Large Numbers, 195n40.

41. NR, “Féminisme et fécondité,” Rappel, Oct. 19, 1900.

42. Noëlie Drous, “Nos pierres noires,” Voix des femmes, Dec. 13, 1923.

43. André’s death notice indicates where he died. She put her third child, Marcel, in a pouponnière, and given her attitude toward motherhood revealed in her “Impressions d’un jour de mélancolie” (FR, carton 4, manuscrits divers, Nelly Roussel, June 1899), as well as in her subsequent correspondence and behavior, I suspect that she did not breast-feed Mireille either—a family friend recalled to Godet years later having run the errand of procuring bottles of sterilized milk for her (E. Maccarin to HG, Jan. 17, 1923).

44. Correspondence between Henri Godet and Nelly Roussel, 1903, passim. The correspondence between them, and with other family members, is found in FR, cartons 6 and 8.

45. Ibid., HG to NR, Aug. 26 and Sept. 11, 1902. Just two weeks earlier, he had refused to attend the wedding of a close friend because he would not be able to tolerate the celebration of the mass, and provided a false excuse (his spleen). His letters do not indicate which sculptures he was trying to sell.

46. Ibid., HG to NR, July 28, 1902.

47. Ibid., HG to NR, July 13, 1902.

48. Ibid., HG to NR, July 31 and Aug. 6, 1902.

49. Ibid., HG to NR, Aug. 22, 23, 24, and 25, 1902.

50. Ibid., HG to NR, July 28 and 31, Aug. 20, 22, 23, and 25, 1902.

51. Ibid., HG to NR, Aug. 22, 24, and 26, 1902.

52. Fronde, Mar. 22, 1903; L’Action, May 22, 1903, Rappel, Oct. 13, 1903.

53. L. Gallot, “Andromaque à l’université populaire,” Independent de Seine-et-Oise, Dec. 28, 1902.

54. Humbert, Eugène Humbert, 11–12; Ronsin, Grève des ventres, 74.

55. Humbert, Eugène Humbert, 11–12; Ronsin, Grève des ventres, 58–61. About 20 or 30 people attended the bimonthly meetings in Paris.

56. NR, “L’Amour fécond, l’amour stérile,” Régénération, January 1903.

57. “Un Manifest Malthusien,” La Patrie, Mar. 20, 1903; “Les Malthusiennes,” Rappel, Mar. 20, 1903, in APP Ba 381 prov.

58. International Institute of Social History (IISG), Amsterdam, Humbert archives, # 323 (correspondence to Régénération), letter from HG to Paul Robin, Feb. 13, 1903.

59. FR, carton 5, “Discours et conferences,” 1901–21.

60. Roussel, “Discours sur la liberté de la maternité à l’initiative de P. Robin fondateur de la ligue de Régénération Humain,” FR, carton 5, manuscrits. This speech is listed in her agenda as having been delivered Mar. 5, 1903, with the title “Discours d’ouverture sur la grève des mères.”

61. APP Ba 381 prov; report, Prefecture of Police, 3d Brigade, Mar. 6, 1903; see also report of same date from the 2d Brigade.

62. “Le Féminisme,” Journal de Mantes, Feb. 11, 1903.

63. NR, Par la révolte, 4th ed., with speech by Sébastian Faure. This was originally published c. 1903. Roussel often referred to women’s “flanks,” no doubt to emphasize her contention that repeated, uncontrolled, unwanted pregnancies made women animal-like.

64. She was assisted by three other actresses and accompanied by an organist, M. Gavioli, who played one of his own compositions. The performance was “warmly applauded” and the play, according to La Fronde, was a “beautiful work of great stature.” Le Jour reported less enthusiastically that the play obtained “a very legitimate success.” But when she performed it the following month for the Syndicat des femmes de lettres, L’Ouvrière called it a dramatic scene of great force, whose author “is a true tragic actress.” Roussel’s diaries and agendas indicate who participated in the play, and her letters refer to the number of copies she sold while on tour. See, e.g., her diary entry of Jan. 3, 1904. The announcement of the sale of the brochure appeared in Régénération, April 1904.

65. HG to NR, Sept. 2, 1903.

66. HG to NR, Sept. 1 and 2, 1903.

67. A. de Boisandré, “L’Enseignement laïque: Les Universités populaires,” Libre Parole, Oct. 30, 1903; reprinted in the Nouvelliste d’Amiens; Patriot orléannis; Journal de Redon; Indépendence bretonne; Anjou; Journal de Belfort; and Journal de Bolbec.

68. A. de Boisandré, “L’Enseignement laïque: Les Universités populaires,” Libre Parole, Nov. 8, 1903. Again the controversy spread far outside Paris. The Revue de l’Ouest (Niort) reprinted part of Roussel’s letter and copied, word for word, as its own, de Boisandré’s query about whether these theories might not be misunderstood and lead ultimately to the right to abortion (“Enseignement laïque et universités populaires,” Revue de l’Ouest, Nov. 12, 1903).

69. FR, carton 4, manuscrits, Roussel, speech honoring President Magnaud.

70. “Glanes du matin,” Gazette de France, Nov. 1, 1903 (reproduced in Journal de Saint Quentin); “L’Apothéose du bon juge,” Journal de Chartres, Nov. 8, 1903. Favorable coverage of the event appeared in L’Action, Oct. 31, 1903; Gil Blas, Oct. 31, 1903; Fronde, Nov. 1, 1903; Rappel, Nov. 1, 1903 (article reproduced in Progrès de la Somme); Temps, November 1903 (article reproduced in Tribune républicaine of Saint-Etienne and Journal de Bayeux); Pensée libre (Algeria), Nov. 22, 1903. Jeanne Humbert, “Nelly Roussel, 1878–1922,” Libre Pensée autonome des Bouches-du-Rhône, April 1980.

71. “Féminisme!” L’Avenir du XIIème, Nov. 7, 1903.

72. On Faure, see Maitron, ed., Dictionnaire biographique du mouvement ouvrier français, pt. 3: 1871–1914: De la Commune à la Grande Guerre, 12: 174–76; Humbert, Eugène Humbert, 55–58. APP Ba 381, report by Finot, Nov. 17, 1903. Régénération, December 1903.

73. “Conférence Sébastian Faure ‘Le Problème de la population’ présidée par Mme. Nelly Roussel, Salle des Sociétés savantes, 16 novembre 1903: Allocution de la présidente,” in Roussel, Quelques discours, 7–10.

74. Fronde, Dec. 1, 1903.

75. Roussel recorded having given twenty-three public talks in 1903, mostly in Paris and its environs, at popular universities and meetings of anarchists, neo-Malthusians, feminists, anticlericals, socialists, and freethinkers, which received plenty of press coverage; their titles included “On Feminism,” “On Feminism and Free Thinking,” “The Admission of Women into Freemasonry,” “Motherhood and the Revolt of Mothers,” “The Strike of Mothers,” and “The Persecution of the Feminine Mind.” FR, carton 5, “Discours et conferences,” agenda, 1903.

76. Lalouette, Libre Pensée en France, 63.

77. Ibid., 64.

78. Ibid., 93.

79. Rebérioux, République radicale? 45–47.

80. See Offen, “Depopulation, Nationalism, and Feminism,” and Klejman and Rochefort, Égalité en marche, as well as Chapters 4 and 5 in this volume.

81. Roussel must have had the same reaction to Freemasons. Although she belonged to a mixed lodge, with many feminists, and Freemasons varied a great deal in their attitudes, the majority opposed neo-Malthusianism and generally embraced the concept of the éternel féminin, as Réquillard has pointed out in Initiation des femmes, 199–200, 219. It is unclear to me how long Roussel remained in her lodge, because she never explicitly mentions it in her correspondence or her diary. On women and Freemasonry, see also Allen, “Sisters of Another Sort.”

82. “Conférence Sébastian Faure” (cited n. 74 above).

83. HG to NR, Aug. 28 and 30, 1903.

84. “Conference de Mme Nelly Roussel,” Fronde, Jan. 1, 1904.

85. Fronde, Jan. 1, 1904, and Pour la République (a republican and socialist monthly), no. 2 (January 1904), published her address at the National Congress of Free Thought, and it also received coverage and responses in the Nouvelliste (Rouen), Petit Bleu (Brussels), Petit Provençal, and Petit Troyen, all Dec. 28, 1903; Correspondencia España (Madrid), Étoile belge, France (Bordeaux), Petit Phare (Nantes), Petite République (two articles), Phare de la Loire, and Rappel, all Dec. 29, 1903; as well as in L’Action, Dec. 31, 1903, which called it “one of the best talks given at the Congress.”

86. Henri Duchmann, Libertaire, Feb. 13, 1904.

87. NR, Libertaire, Feb. 20, 1904.

88. Henri Duchmann, Libertaire, Feb. 27, 1904.

89. See Tilburg, “Reimagining the Republican Ideal.”

90. Nye, Masculinity and Male Codes of Honor, writes: “a journalist had to expect occasional visits from the seconds of a man who imagined himself outraged by something he had written. As the seasoned polemicist and dueler Edouard Drumont said in 1886, ‘Behind every signature everyone expects to find a chest.’ … The sort of bravado this assumption inspired discouraged editors from printing anonymously written articles when they might contain something controversial. As dueling manuals made clear, the editor himself must assume responsibility for an unsigned article unless the author voluntarily revealed himself. Besides, there was something suspect, even feminine, in anonymity” (187). See also Nye, “Medicine and Science as Masculine ‘Fields of Honor,’” and Reddy, Invisible Code. Both Madeleine Pelletier and Aria Ly overtly challenged male codes of honor. Pelletier dressed as a man and carried a gun, as she thought all women should. Ly challenged a man to a duel for having accused her of being a lesbian. See Sowerwine and Maignien, Madeleine Pelletier; Felicia Gordon, Integral Feminist; and Mansker, “‘Pistol Virgin.’”

91. Godet apparently had other motives for entering this fray as well, for to the dismay of “revolutionaries” such as Duchmann, he was deeply involved in electoral politics in the twelfth arrondissement. For this reason, according to police, “he prohibited his wife from having relations with anarchists,” for they would undermine his efforts. APP Ba 1651, dossier 59480, police report, Mar. 9, 1904. The police believed Godet was actually running for office himself, but I have found no evidence that he did.

92. See, e.g., Fassin, “Purloined Gender.”

93. Henri Duchmann, “La Réaction féministe,” Libertaire, Mar. 12, 1904.

94. Henri Duchman, “Ne touchez pas à la Reine,” Libertaire, Apr. 9, 1904.

95. “Réponse à M. Cambensy de Chicago,” Libertaire, Apr. 16, 1904.

96. Rochefort, “Antiféminisme.”

97. See Linda Gordon, Woman’s Body, Woman’s Right, 93–113.

98. NR to Thomas Nel, Apr. 9, 1904.

99. NR, “Lettre ouverte à Monsieur le docteur Toulouse,” Régénération, no. 22 (March 1903).

100. FR, dossier 091 ROU, NR to Marguerite Durand, June 28, 1904.

Three • The Making and Marketing of a Spectacular Apostle

1. FR, carton 7, “Une Heureuse initiative,” L’Action, Feb. 27, 1904; carton 5, diary (daily agenda), 1904. Roussel resumed her diary in 1904, though as noted in the Introduction above, it only amounted to perfunctory daily listings of what she had done and whom she had seen.

2. The living arrangement was permanent when Roussel resumed her diary in 1904. It is possible that the Godets’ apartment lacked sufficient space for three people to live comfortably, especially since Nelly required work space; or that they were too busy to care for Mireille themselves as Nelly’s career developed, and—as suggested in her memoir of 1899—she had little patience with the demands of small children.

3. Maitron, ed., Dictionnaire biographique du mouvement ouvrier française, pt. 3: 1871–1914: De la Commune à la Grande Guerre, 11: 307. The bulk of information about Émile Darnaud is from his copious correspondence to Roussel in FR, carton 5; the quoted words and phrases are from Darnaud to NR, July 27, 1904; Oct. 15, 1904; Mar. 15, 1905, and passim.

4. BMD, “Correspondance Mireille Godet,” letter from Charles Darnaud, Dec. 5, 1977.

5. FR, carton 5, Darnaud to NR, Aug. 29, 1904, quoting from his personal journal, Jan. 26, 1903.

6. Émile Darnaud to NR, n.d. (1904). His “feminism” at this point was hardly edifying. He recounted discussions at the meetings of the “feminist committee” in which he had pointed out that women could hardly serve in a civil capacity—i.e., as witnesses—because they always lied about their age.

7. FR, Correspondance Darnaud, 1904–5, passim.

8. Roberts, Disruptive Acts, 105–6. Originally, it had not been Durand’s intent to make La Fronde explicitly feminist; but by the time she had made the decision to abandon it, it had become so. Roberts suggests that in addition to bad management, financial difficulties, and personal problems with other activists, Durand decided to leave La Fronde precisely because, having become feminist, it was more conventional, predictable, and less “disruptive.” She may have thought the feminist message would be more disruptive if it appeared in L’Action.

9. Although records about speaking fees do not exist for this first tour, beginning in 1905, Roussel kept separate agendas in which she recorded the fees and the proceeds from selling Par la révolte. See FR, carton 5, agendas.

10. FR, carton 7, 1905 press clippings. Sowerwine notes that La Fronde offended socialist feminists because of its attitude toward working-class women and quotes Marguerite Durand: “Working women … will make the revolution for their bourgeois sisters, but what good are arms which flail about when there are no brains to guide them?” (Sowerwine, Sisters or Citizens? 75).

11. NR to HG, Apr. 15, 1904; May 10, 1905.

12. FR, carton 6, Thomas Nel to NR, Apr. 13, 1904.

13. NR to HG, Apr. 16, 1904.

14. HG to NR, Apr. 18, 1904.

15. On a tour three years later, Nelly freely recounted to Henri the fervent admiration of a “bizarre” Mr. Feller, who wouldn’t leave her side the entire evening; and about dining with a Mr. Coffin, who was single and took his meals at her hotel. Mr. Coffin then took her on a vivifiante (bracing) walk. And she wrote of yet another admirer: “Ah! This Fulpuis! Do you know what he did? Well! My dear, he kissed me, last evening, after the lecture, and kissed me backstage! But don’t get indignant. He is a good grandfather. I have plenty of them, these older worshippers.” NR to HG, Feb. 26 and 27, Apr. 10, 1907, and another example, Apr. 27, 1907.

16. NR to HG, Apr. 16, 1904. “Barnum” was used in France to mean someone who “exhibits sensational phenomena amid much publicity” (Le Robert Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, 1: 333).

17. Pétit Méridional, Apr. 17, 1904.

18. “La Conférence Nelly-Roussel,” Union républicaine, Apr. 16, 1904, reproduced in L’Avenir Cazoulin.

19. NR to HG, Apr. 16, 1904.

20. Bellanger et al., eds., Histoire générale de la presse française, 2: 399–400.

21. NR to HG, Apr. 18, 1904.

22. Ibid.

23. NR to HG, Apr. 21, 1904.

24. NR to HG, Apr. 26, 1904; Roussel, “Impressions de militante,” L’Action, June 8, 1904.

25. Vérité (Cannes), Apr. 28, 1904.

26. Laguerre (1860–1956) was the highly intelligent and cultivated daughter of a diplomat who undertook “brilliant” literary studies in Paris. She was known for her work with rural school teachers. Klejman and Rochefort, Égalité en marche, 176–77.

27. Léonie Talsans, “Chronique lyonnaise: Un Leçon,” Travail de la femme et de la jeune fille, June 1904.

28. Ibid.

29. According to Mireille Godet, as she recounted in the 1970s, Roussel believed in free unions and admired those who contracted successful ones. But she did not personally encourage young women to engage in them, because they too often ended badly for women. See Roussel, Éternelle sacrifiée, ed. Armogathe and Albistur, 72n22.

30. Le Bon’s best-selling Psychology of Crowds had an extraordinary influence on the French imagination, and specifically on Darnaud and others who commented on the impact Roussel had on crowds (see Chapter 4). On Le Bon, see Nye, Origins of Crowd Psychology; Barrows, Distorted Mirrors; and Pick, Faces of Degeneration.

31. Jules Burty, “Morale laïque et indépendante,” L’Éclair comtois, June 28, 1904; Eugène Tavernier, “Libres-Penseuses,” Univers, June 29, 1904; “Leur morale,” Avenir de Luxembourg d’Arlon, July 3, 1904; “Lycées des Filles,” Nouvelliste, July 6, 1904; “La Logique des faits,” Journal de Colmar, July 3, 1904; favorable articles included “La Main aux Dames!” Républicain de Granville, June 16, 1904; “Attaques cléricale,” Régénération, July 1904; and “Maternité & misère,” Lyon républicain, July 14, 1904.

32. Burty, “Morale laïque et indépendante.”

33. This estimate is based on the audience sizes that either she or newspapers reported.

34. NR to Eugène Humbert, May 2, 1904; HG to NR, May 4, 1904. Godet wrote to Humbert, “Madame Godet will not be in Paris before the 22d, and her lecture tour and her itinerary have stopped definitively. I must even tell you that she will do no further lecturing this year for reasons of her health. When I add that she can hardly talk about this subject without causing facile jokes, you will have understood the cause of this unforeseen difficulty.” IISG, Humbert Archives, # 139.

35. HG to NR, Apr. 30, May 9 and 15, 1904; NR to HG. May 3, 1904.

36. NR to HG, May 9, 1904; Paris qui passe, May 22, 1904; HG to NR, Apr. 30, 1904.

37. When taking a break from her tour to visit her grandfather in Monaco, she wrote to Henri: “I was thinking again that in exactly three weeks we’ll be reunited, and this thought did me much good; for, in spite of everything, I am bored; neither my oratory successes nor the delights of this marvelous region succeed in replacing you. You don’t doubt it, I hope?” (NR to HG, May 1, 1904).

38. NR to HG, Apr. 29 and May 18, 1904. Roussel normally weighed about 105–112 lbs.

39. NR to HG, Apr. 21 and May 18, 1904.

40. NR to HG, May 9, 1904.

41. NR to HG, May 11, 1904.

42. HG to NR, May 14 and 15, 1904; “Le Féminisme et la libre-pensée,” L’Action, May 14, 1904; Figaro, May 14, 1904 (reproduced in Nouvelliste [Rouen]). On Pelletan, see Stone, Sons of the Revolution, 282–86; Agulhon, French Republic, 102.

43. See FR, carton 7, 1907, press clippings regarding the collaboration between free-thinkers and feminists.

44. HG to NR, Sept. 11, 1902.

45. On “Barnum,” see n. 16 above.

46. Correspondence NR to HG, HG to NR, Apr.–May 1904, passim.

47. FR, dossier 091 ROU, letter from NR dated June 28, 1904. The irony here is that having another child actually helped advance Roussel’s cause.

48. NR, “Impressions d’une militante,” L’Action, June 8, 1904.

49. NR, “Un Exemple,” L’Action, Aug. 3, 1904.

50. Darnaud to NR, Aug. 31, 1904.

51. NR diary, 1904

52. NR, “Un Bienfaiteur de l’humanité,” L’Action, Oct. 5, 1904; reprinted in id., Quelques lances rompues, 165–69.

53. HG to NR, Sept. 20, 1909. This cryptic comment suggests that Lucas’s formula was problematic, but nothing else in the archives indicates that he “killed many women.”

54. FR, carton 8, correspondence from Dr. Lucas; Roussel, “Bienfaiteur de l’humanité.”

55. Sussman, “Wet-Nursing Business” and “End of the Wet-Nursing Business,” 237–58; Fuchs, Abandoned Children.

56. Flammeche, “Une Grande Oeuvre,” L’Action, May 24, 1909. The article also declared that the infant mortality was as high as 70 percent among infants placed in nurseries or with wet nurses.

57. Sohn, Chrysalides, 1: 274.

58. Harlor, “Maternité totale,” Fronde, Feb. 20, 1901, cited in Cova, Maternité et droits des femmes, 130.

59. Fuchs, Abandoned Children, 51.

60. See NR, “Un Bienfaiteur de l’humanité,” L’Action, Oct. 5, 1904.

61. Darnaud to NR, n.d. (1904).

62. Darnaud to NR, n.d. (1904).

63. Nelly Roussel, “Qu’est-ce que le féminisme?” Petit almanach féministe illustré …, 1906. The Union fraternelle des femmes enlisted Roussel to define feminism in the first of three almanacs that appeared in 1906, 1907, and 1908, and she did so succinctly: feminism was “a doctrine of individual happiness and general interest … of justice and harmony [that] proclaims natural equivalence and demands social equality between the two elements of the human gender.” This definition not only reflected the core of Roussel’s doctrine but reveals it as a very bourgeois acclamation of the pursuit of individual happiness. For the other two almanacs, Roussel provided theoretical articles on recognition of motherhood as a social function, on neo-Malthusianism, and on the right to work.

64. Summaries of the meeting were published in Parti ouvrier, Oct. 30 (reprinted in Femme affranchie, November); Petite République, Oct. 30; Rappel républicain (Lyon), Oct. 30 (an exceedingly negative commentary); L’Action, Oct. 31; Eclaireur de l’Est (Reims), Oct. 31; Temps, Oct. 31; Bulletin des Halles, Oct. 31; and Jura (Porrentruy), Nov. 1; all 1904.

65. FR, carton 5, speaking agenda. This lecture was first published in Roussel, Éternelle sacrifiée, ed. Armogathe and Albistur.

66. NR to HG, Apr. 8, 1905.

67. NR to HG, April 1905.

68. Tribune républicaine (Saint-Etienne), Apr. 11; Action républicaine (Haute-Loire), Apr. 12; L’Action, Apr. 13; and Haute-Loire, Apr. 16; all 1905.

69. Tribune de Saint-Etienne, Progrès de Lyon, and Lyon républicain, all Apr. 14, 1905.

70. NR to HG, Apr. 21 and May 19, 1905.

71. FR, carton 5, speaking agenda; NR to HG, May 13, 1905.

72. Darnaud to NR, May 29, 1905.

73. Darnaud to NR, June 17 and 19, 1905. He also told Roussel that his wife had lost their first infant, and nearly died herself. “Ah, the pains of Motherhood!” he said. The occasion of meeting Roussel, and for the first time hearing her speak, of course deepened Darnaud’s affection for her. Even before her visit, he expressed himself very emotionally; he always referred to her qualities as a mother and mentioned her children (indeed, a good deal more than she did.) Typical of his letters is the following, written to both Nelly and Henri: “And I who has the joy of feeling myself not only the disciple but the friend of your Nelly, of this mama of the charming Mireille, of the admirable woman who wrote me six pages with an open heart just two weeks after the birth of your big Marcel; … I write this to you at a triple gallop of the pen, with a full heart, almost with tears in my eyes” (May 25 1905).

74. See, e.g., NR to HG, May 7, 1905.

75. NR to HG, Apr. 21, 22, and 24, and May 7, 1905. HG to NR, Apr. 21, 1905.

76. NR to HG, May 10 and 19, 1905; HG to NR, Apr. 23 and May 19, 1905.

77. HG to NR, Apr. 17, 18 and 30, 1905.

78. L’Action, Jan. 19, 1906. HG to NR Oct. 25 and 26, 1906. Henri continued to express pleasure at his wife’s success and took his own role in shaping her career seriously, though he did so with undisguised irony, particularly in his always playful salutations, such as “Henri Godet, mari de Mme Nelly Roussel.” He continued to express obsessive concern about her health and gave her detailed advice. In nearly every letter, she requested his services: errands, correspondence, and phone calls. He arranged for all her train tickets, which required detailed information about her itinerary, train schedules, and the fluctuating ticket prices. Roussel used her speaking fees—apparently about 45 francs—and the sale of her brochures at 50 centimes each to finance her travel. On this particular tour, she sold 400–500 brochures. There were admission charges for most of her lectures, up to 50 centimes. A second-class train fare between Bordeaux and Paris was about 45 francs; hotels, usually covered by the organizers, cost 3–5 francs. Roussel traveled second class, while Godet traveled third, “studying psychology and art,” as he put it. See HG-NR correspondence, April–May 1905.

79. NR to HG, Apr. 14, 1905; “Les Conférences de Nelly Roussel,” L’Action, Apr. 24, 1905.

80. “Nelly Roussel,” Idée socialiste (Lyon), Apr. 8, 1905.

81. NR to HG, May 10, 1905.

Four • The Public and Private Politics of Female Self-Sacrifice

Epigraph: Lucien Leduc (Ledont), “Une Conference de Nelly Roussel au cirque,” Jeune Champagne (Reims), March 1905. The newspaper erroneously attributed the article to Lucien Leduc; Lucien Ledont to NR, Nov. 27, 1905.

1. Press coverage, Réveil normand, Jan. 26–Feb. 2; Journal du Caen, Jan. 22, 23, and 31; Impartial (Caen), Feb. 3; all 1906.

2. That “real” women—those true to their feminine nature—could not be held responsible for their actions and words constituted the defense and ultimate reason for the acquittal of Madame Caillaux in her murder trial. See Berenson, Trial of Madame Caillaux. Marguerite Durand and the other frondeuses likewise had considerable difficulty attaining legitimacy, even through the printed word, because women were thought incapable of reason, as Roberts, Disruptive Acts, 91–93, has demonstrated.

3. FR, carton 8, correspondence related to Roussel’s lectures. Marguerite Wolf to HG (translated article from Budapest newspaper), May 23, 1908; undated letter with an illegible signature from a man living at 27 rue de Berri; carton 7, Petit Niçois and Dépêche (Nice), both May 1, 1911; “La Conférence Nelly Roussel à Gray,” Indépendant de la H^teSaône (Gray), Mar. 8, 1911.

4. Ivimy, Woman’s Guide to Paris, 107. I thank Margo Bistis for bringing this guidebook to my attention.

5. De Giorgio, “Catholic Model,” in History of Women, ed. Fraisse and Perrot, 4: 166–97.

6. FR, carton 5, speaking agenda and Roussel manuscripts 03/639. NR to HG, Feb. 24, 1907; NR to HG, Apr. 27, 1907. Roussel recorded having received 3,860 francs in speaking fees from 1905 to 1907. On Par la révolte, see Pederson, Legislating the French Family,166–70.

7. FR, carton 8, A. B. de Liptay, (with the letterhead) Publicité Médico-Mondaine de Paris, Mar. 8, 1906; Isabelle Gatti de Gamond to NR, n.d.; M. Pailhé, Lisbon, Feb. 25, 1906, to NR; Victor Ragosine to NR, Oct. 3 and November (?) 1905. For reaction to an earlier performance in Paris, see Melanie Demoulin to NR, May 10, 1903, who wrote from the eighteenth arrondissement indicating that she could guarantee an audience of 300 or 400 and she was certain these women would be transformed if Roussel could repeat her performance.

8. Roussel often noted the anniversary of her first communion, when she was 11; e.g., NR to HG, May 9, 1907, and May 9, 1911.

9. The roots of this model lay not just in their own Christianity of the past, but in the early forms of worker organization in “brotherhoods” that practiced rituals similar to the celebration of the mass. Perrot, “On the Formation of the French Working Class,” in Working-Class Formation, ed. Katznelson and Zolberg, 94.

10. NR, “La Liberté de maternité,” in id., Trois conférences, 42.

11. Valentine Valette to NR, Apr. 10, 1905. Many men and women who wrote to Roussel called her an “apostle of feminism.” See, e.g., letters to Roussel of H. Piens (a midwife), Feb. 27, 1907; “Pearl,” Mar. 3 1907; T. Moraud, Apr. 15, 1909, and others in FR, carton 8.

12. NR to HG, Apr. 13, 1905.

13. NR to HG, May 9 and 10, 1907. Her description in the second letter gives an idea of some of the difficulties she had to face, with poor acoustics, dust, and smoke that wore her down.

14. Sewell, Work and Revolution in France; Katznelson and Zolbert, eds., Working-Class Formation, 45–154; and Magraw, History of the French Working Class.

15. Roussel, Éternelle sacrifiée, ed. Armogathe and Albistur, 55, 59.

16. Ibid., 57.

17. Ibid., 57–59. For a good example of changing aspirations among provincial women, see Emilie Carles, A Life of Her Own: The Transformation of a Countrywoman in Twentieth-Century France, trans. Auriel A. Goldberger (New York: Penguin Books, 1992).

18. Roussel, Éternelle sacrifiée, ed. Armogathe and Albistur, 59.

19. NR to HG, Apr. 3, 1906. Rebérioux, République radicale? 90–98; for the Lyon region, see Lequin, Ouvriers de la région lyonnaise, 2: 297–366.

20. NR to HG, Apr. 9 and 12, 1906; HG to NR, Mar. 29 and July 26, 1906.

21. NR to HG, Apr. 13, 1905.

22. NR, “Liberté de maternité,” in id., Trois conférences, 37–38.

23. Ibid., 39.

24. FR, carton 8, B. Cremnitz, Feb. 16, 1907. On Roussel provoking tears, see also Mlle Guy to NR, Apr. 14, 1907; NR to HG, Oct. 26, 1906.

25. See, e.g., Libre Pensée (Lausanne), Jan. 17, 1906; Louise Olline to NR, Feb. 16, 1907; Pearl to NR, Mar. 3, 1907; G. Mazade to NR, Nov. 29, 1907.

26. Jeanne Bans, Aspiran (Hérault) to NR, Nov. 8, 1905.

27. Roussel, “Liberté de maternité,” in id., Trois conferences, 39.

28. NR, “Décadence ou progrès?” L’Action, Jan. 18, 1907.

29. Roussel, “La Liberté de maternité,” in id., Trois conferences, 43–44.

30. Roussel described her observation of this pattern during her 1904 tour in an article published in L’Action, June 8, 1094, quoted in Chapter 3 above. On her 1906 tour, she described an organizer’s wife as “insignificant and indolent.” NR to HG, Apr. 6, 1906.

31. E.E., “Conférence à St. Lô,” Journal de la Manche, Jan. 24, 1906; George Gat, “Une Conference féministe,” Journal du Caen, Jan. 22 and 23, 1906; “La Femme et la libre pensée,” Briard, Apr. 5 and 6, 1907; “Conférence de Madame Nelly Roussel,” Progrès de la Haute Savoie (Annemasse), Apr. 20, 1907.

32. See, e.g., “La Libre Pensée de Saint Lô,” Courrier de la Manche, Jan. 28, 1906; Aimée Reboux, Nîmes, to NR, Aug. 28, 1906; Marthe Jacob, Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, to NR, Oct. 17, 1906; anonymous letter from Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, to NR, Oct. 16, 1906; an “unknown who very much appreciated your lecture,” Yvendon, Switzerland, to NR in Lausanne, Oct. 23, 1906; W. Brosch, Lausanne, Oct. 27, 1906; and letter from a woman in Geneva, Apr. 17, 1907, all in carton 8.

33. NR to “Monsieur,” Mar. 13, 1909. The letter criticizes Kergomard for her close-mindedness after she had written a letter, probably published, about freedom of expression and ideas. Roussel begins her own letter by saying that she is not in the habit of attacking her colleagues in feminism (and she rarely did), and for that reason perhaps she never sent the letter. On Kergomard, see Klejman and Rochefort, Égalité en marche, 132, 145, 154, and 156–57.

34. Augusta Moll-Weiss, “Maternité,” Siècle, Jan. 12, 1908.

35. Aria Ly to Caroline Kauffman, n.d. (sometime in 1911). I thank Andrea Mansker for sharing this letter. Aria Ly to NR, May 15, 1912.

36. “Conférence féministe,” Journal de St. Lô, Jan. 17, 1906. Other articles made similar points, such as J.D., “Conférence à St. Lô,” Gars normand, Jan. 28, 1906, which claimed women would not be able to resist giving away a vote “before the fear of a refusal of absolution” and complained that they already had too much influence over the electorate because of the power they had over their husbands.

37. Favorable articles described Roussel’s appearance, oratory, charisma, and audience opposition and reaction in detail, as well as giving summaries of her message. Much of the opposition came in response to these articles. This was only the second lecture free-thinkers in St. Lô had ever organized. The author of one five-page article refuting all of Roussel’s points thought that choosing her as a speaker reflected badly on the freethinking movement, especially because she was associated with neo-Malthusians; he cited the lecture in Paris (Nov. 20, 1905) that had instigated the Cassagnac affair, discussed later in this chapter. E.E., “Conférence à St. Lô,” Journal de la Manche, Jan. 24, 1906. See “Le Public de la conférence,” Gars normand, Jan. 28, 1906.

38. FR, carton 8, letter from Camille Guesmere (or Guesmierce) to Henry Bérenger, July 14, 1904. Bérenger ironically considered the press as a whole, despite his prominent role in it, “an insidious female force seducing and enslaving its readers and, thus, eating away at democracy,” according to Roberts, Disruptive Acts, 80.

39. Camille Guesmere to NR, Dec. 8, 1904.

40. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Émile (1762), trans. Barbara Foxley (London: Everyman’s Library, 1989), 323.

41. Monsieur Celérier to NR, Paris, n.d. (c. 1907).

42. David Halperin, One Hundred Years of Homosexuality and Other Essays on Greek Love (New York: Routledge, 1990), 29–33, quoted in Nye, ed., Sexuality, 23, 25. Aria Ly argued for celibacy. See also MacKinnon, “Does Sexuality Have a History?” in Discourses of Sexuality, ed. Stanton.

43. Flammèche, “À la terrasse: Dénouements,” L’Action, Sept. 9, 1905; NR, “Eclaircissements,” L’Action, Sept. 16, 1905. See also Pedersen, Legislating the French Family, 170

44. “Ligue pour la Dépopulation,” Eclair, Nov. 17, 1905, reprinted in Verité française, Républicaine (Melun), and Mémorial des Vosges (Epinal).

45. Le Liseur, “Carnet du Liseur: Joseph de Maistre malthusien,” Avenir de la Vienne (Poitiers), Dec. 6, 1905; “Dépopulation et Répopulation,” Matin, Nov. 18, 1905. The comment about Piot’s newly published statistics appeared in “Chronique parisienne,” Petit Provençal, Nov. 19, 1905. See also “Malthus et M. Piot,” Petite République, Nov. 19, 1905. Régénération thanked L’Action, Libertaire, Humanité, Petite République, Temps nouveau, and Anarchie, as well as the “reactionary” press, for either helping announce the lecture or helping advertise it by opposing it (December 1905).

46. APP Ba 381, report of the 2d Police Brigade, Nov. 21, 1905. G. Hardy, “La Conférence de Nelly Roussel,” Régénération, December 1905. FR, carton 7, notebook of “articles sur Nelly Roussel” indicates at least eleven Paris and provincial newspapers produced twelve articles about her lecture.

47. “Pour la dépopulation,” Eclair, Nov. 21, 1905.

48. Guy de Cassagnac, “Morale des temps presents,” Authorité, Jan. 23, 1906. Théroigne de Méricourt became active in revolutionary activities in 1789 and attempted to found a women’s society; she ardently advocated forming an armed battalion of women. She went insane and was committed to the Salpetrière hospital where she died in 1817. Louise Michel participated in the Paris Commune of 1871 and did what de Méricourt advocated in wearing a National Guard uniform, and carrying and using a rifle. She was the “great female warrior” of the Commune and became known as the “Red Virgin.” Among the critics of the Commune, she was called a “virago.” She was exiled to New Caledonia. De Cassagnac probably did not know that Louise Michel was Roussel’s greatest heroine.

49. G.C., “Papier timbré,” Autorité, Feb. 10, 1906.

50. “La Citoyenne Roussel à Fontenay-Trésigny,” Tribune briarde, Mar. 27, 1907, and “Cour d’appel de Paris,” Gazette du Palais, Apr. 10, 1907; André Pique, “En Police correctionnelle,” Autorité, June 29, 1906.

51. Gazette de Tribunaux, July 5, 1906; G.C., “À la neuvième chambre,” Autorité, July 6, 1906.

52. G.C., “À la neuvième chambre,” Autorité, July 6, 1906.

53. “Cour d’appel de Paris,” Gazette du Palais, Apr. 10, 1907.

54. FR, carton 7, notebook of press clippings “de Nelly Roussel.” Louis Roya, “Escarmouches … épistolaires,” Rénovation, Dec. 15, 1911.

55. Darnaud to NR, n.d. (January 1907); Apr. 21, 1908, and Feb. 27, Mar. 23, Oct. 21, and Dec. 8, 1909.

56. Darnaud to Roussel, Apr. 6, 1906; Oct. 27, 1908.

57. V. Hamelin to Darnaud, as copied in Darnaud to NR, Aug. 12, 1905. Nelly had made this claim to Hamelin.

58. Darnaud to NR, July 21, 1907.

59. Darnaud to NR, Apr. 28, 1909. The father-in-law of Darnaud’s son, Jean, had met Jane Misme at the home of the well-known author Octave Mirabeau. The father-in-law claimed that Mirabeau gave Misme 40,000 francs a year. But Misme was then, allegedly, ravished by one Coquelin ainé, who gave her 30,000 francs per month. Darnaud frequently and repeatedly brought up the subject of the duchesse d’Uzès as an example of why women should not be granted the vote, even though he thought elite women (but only the elite) should have it. See for example, Darnaud, postcard to NR, June 1, 1910.

60. Darnaud to NR, Mar. 16, 1906, and Mar. 17, 1910. In the latter, he shares a letter from an 18-year-old mother of two who found neo-Malthusian methods disgusting. She said women should either love their children or remain chaste, but then—as though to affirm Roussel’s point—she complained bitterly of the poor workers who gave birth every year, and of how pitiless the men were.

61. NR to HG, Oct. 23, 1906.

62. NR to HG, Apr. 3, 1906.

63. Klejman and Rochefort, Egalité en marche, 218. On women neo-Malthusianists, see McLaren, Sexuality and Social Order, 161–66; Ronsin, Grève des ventres, 158–63; Bard, Filles de Marianne, 209–15. On Madeleine Pelletier, see Sowerwine and Maignien, Madeleine Pelletier; Felicia Gordon, Integral Feminist; Bard, ed., Madeleine Pelletier, esp. Marie-Victoire Louis, “Sexualité et prostitution,” 109–25; Scott, Only Paradoxes to Offer, 125–60.

64. NR to HG, Mar. 30 and 31 and Apr. 12 and 21, 1906; HG to NR, Apr. 22 1906. Roussel’s diaries note the growing list of names of friends and family, often followed by “etc.”

65. HG to NR, Apr. 5, 6, and 12, 1906.

66. NR to HG, Apr. 9, 1906. Other examples of other stickers, see Guerrand, Libre maternité, 61–62.

67. NR to HG, Apr. 29, 1906; HG to NR, May 4 and 8, 1906.

68. HG to NR, Mar. 31, 1906.

69. HG to NR, Mar. 31, Apr. 20 and 29, May 3, 4, and 7, and July 27, 1906; May 4, 1907; NR to HG, May 4, Aug. 6, and Oct. 23, 1906. For example, Nelly wrote Henri from Clermont during her 1906 tour regarding her future lecture in Toulon, venting her frustration as well as a measure of Parisian snobbery: “I wrote this morning to Runel de Gallargues (what a noble name!), and I am going to write to What’s-his-name of Toulon, … since the letter where you announce that I accept the date of April 29 does not seem sufficiently explicit to these southern libre-poires [suckers, and a play on libres penseurs]. Send him, this … what’s-his-name, whose address you have, some documents on your phenomenon” (NR to HG, Apr. 5, 1906).

70. HG to NR, May 8, Oct. 21 and 24, 1906; Bellanger et al., Histoire générale de la presse française, 3: 375.

71. NR to HG, n.d.; NR to HG, July 26, 1906.

72. NR to HG, Aug. 5, 1906.

73. According to Roussel’s 1906 diary, she saw Marcel five times—on Jan. 18, Feb. 15, Mar. 4, May 17, and June 21—before they brought him home in September. HG to NR, May 7 and July 28, 1906; NR to HG, Aug. 5, 1906.

74. NR diary entries, October 1906.

75. HG to NR, Oct. 17, 18, 19, 21, 23, 24, 25, 27, 30, and 31, 1906. Andrée Nel was known in her family as a gourde—what we would call an airhead today. She talked incessantly and said nothing. Conversation with Michel Robin, June 20, 2004.

76. HG to NR and NR to HG, May 2, 1907; in response to his “zut” letter, Nelly wrote in anger that she was “too well brought up” to respond in kind (NR to HG, May 9, 1907).

77. HG to NR, Apr. 23, 1907

78. NR to HG, Apr. 27 and 30, 1907; HG to NR, May 4–5, 1907.

79. Darnaud to NR, n.d. (1907); Liberté, Sept. 28, 1907; Liberté d’opinion, July–August, appearing in October 1907. Aria Ly to NR, May 15, 1912.

80. J. Hellé, preface, Roussel, Quelques discours, 6; Société nouvelle, October 1907, quoted this passage with effusive praise for Roussel, and Liberté d’opinion, October 1907, found the introduction “deliciously feminine.”

81. She did experience hardship as well as glory. During her 1907 tour, after a twelve-hour train trip and two lectures in as many days, she complained of insomnia and not having closed her eyes once during the night; “left to battle bedbugs, to pass my time in crushing them, and to put compresses on the blisters they gave me, I decided to flee the enemy that I could not vanquish, and get dressed to pack my trunk, and leave on the first train” (NR to HG, May 14, 1907).

82. This is not to say that the romantic affection had by any means gone out of their marriage; see, e.g., NR to HG, Mar. 3, 1907. But tense moments prevailed. Roussel complained of his forgetfulness and the lack of decorum in his correspondence; he complained of her slowness in sending him information about her speaking and travel schedules and was so confused by the information she did send that he called her letters “Chinese.” See NR to HG, Apr. 24 and 27 and May 9, 1907; HG to NR, May 4 and 6, 1907.

83. HG to NR, May 15, 1907; Henri also complained about Andrée and Paul fighting, and about her spending habits on Feb. 27, Apr. 12 and 19, and May 7, 1907.

84. HG to NR, Mar. 2, Apr. 2, 14, 22, and 23, 1907; NR to HG, Mar. 1, 1907.

85. HG to NR Apr. 19 and 26, 1907; NR to HG, Apr. 30, 1907; HG to NR, July 24, 1907.

86. Marcel, dressed in feminine clothing as was standard at the time for male babies and young boys, is younger than two years old in Fig. 12, so it is safe to assume that the photograph was taken during one of her visits to Versailles.

87. NR diaries, 1904–22. The friendship networks have persisted to this day (conversations with Michel Robin, Martine Robin, and Marc Giron, June 13 and 20, 2004).

88. Davidoff and Hall, Family Fortunes, 338, make the point that this transition was long, uneven, and contested. In their historical anthropology of Swedish middle-class life in nineteenth and early twentieth century, Frykman and Lofgren, Culture Builders, 123–24, describe the actual practices of motherhood, as opposed to the prescribed role, in terms that make Roussel’s relationship with her children appear “normal.” They note that mothers were “all too rarely at the children’s side,” especially among the upper strata of the bourgeoisie, where women’s social obligations left them little time for children. They instead transferred maternal tasks to hired labor. Sociological studies indicate a huge diversity of family structure and practices in France that varied by region. Different systems of authority influenced relations between parents and children, each giving rise to “specific tensions and pathologies” (Michelle Perrot, “The Family Triumphant,” in From the Fires of Revolution to the Great War, ed. id., 127). Literary representations of motherhood such as Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary and studies of domestic service, such as Martin-Fugier, Place des bonnes suggest a rather large gap between the prescribed maternal role and maternal practices.

89. Among the people she saw with great regularity were Marguerite Durand, Marbel, Mme Hammer, Hellé, Eugène Humbert, Liard-Courtois (anarchist, neo-Malthusian, ex-convict, and former neighbor), Salomon Reinach (neo-Malthusian), Paul Robin, Georges Yvetôt (head of the CGT), Alfred Naquet (member of the Chamber of Deputies and author of the 1884 divorce law), and the deputy Albert Cremieux. NR diaries, 1904–14.

90. See NR diaries.

91. HG to NR, May 4, 6, and 7, 1906, Aug. 20, 1907.

92. HG to NR, Feb. 23, 1907; diary entries 1908.

93. HG to NR, Oct. 30, 1906.

Five • Pathologies and Persecutions

1. Maïté Albistur, introduction, Bouglé Collection, Bibliothèque historique de la Ville de Paris.

2. Émile Darnaud to NR, Mar. 23, 1909.

3. Jean-Marie Mayeur, Vie politique, 223; Rebérioux, République radicale? 148–56; Agulhon, French Republic, 137–39; Stora-Lamarre, Enfer de la IIIe République, 206.

4. Jean Luy, “Poison révolutionnaire,” Accord social, Dec. 12, 1909.

5. FR, carton 7, press release on the UFF, Feb. 25, 1911; Klejman and Rochefort, Égalité en marche, 170–72.

6. IISG, Humbert Archives, # 323, HG to Paul Robin, Feb. 13, 1903, correspondence to Régéneration. Some neo-Malthusian activities assumed a bawdy tone. Humbert received a dinner invitation featuring a mostly nude woman dangling a female contraceptive device in front of her groin. The banquet was a diner des joyeux condoms, and the menu included such dishes as Sage femme aux mousses de vagin. IISG, Hubert Archives, # 339.

7. Roussel’s diary entries, 1908; Eugène Humbert had already made clear to both Henri and Nelly in 1907 that he would be leaving the League. HG to NR, Feb. 22, 1907. On the schism, see Ronsin, Grève des ventres, 66–70; Humbert, Eugène Humbert, 64–70.

8. See notebooks of press clippings; in a letter written October 1910, probably to Gabriel Giroud, she noted that she had not been in contact with the Bérengers since ceasing to write for L’Action. IISG, Humbert Archives, # 275, correspondence from Roussel to Humbert, October 1910.

9. HG to NR, Apr. 12 and 19, 1907. Added to his sense of humiliation was that the famous liberal judge Paul Magnaud, whose bust he had sculpted, didn’t even recognize him on passing him in the street, after having sat for him for hours.

10. Harvey, Almost a Man of Genius; Wright, “Clémence Royer: Polymath out of Season,” in id., Notable or Notorious? 43–56. Wright notes: “Charles Darwin … called her ‘one of the cleverest and oddest women in Europe.’ Ernest Renan is said to have described her as ‘almost a man of genius.’” Darwin took her to task because she ignored revisions he made to Origin of Species, and he sought another translator. Royer helped organize France’s first mixed Masonic lodge in 1893 and contributed to Marguerite Durand’s La Fronde.

11. With this money, Godet hoped to repay Montupet 1,200 francs (HG to NR, May 30 and June 10, 1910); he did complete the statue of Royer but found nowhere to put it on display. For its eventual fate, see Epilogue.

12. See HG to NR, Feb. 12, 13, 14, 16, 24, and 28, and Mar. 14, 16, 20, and 25, 1908.

13. See Roussel and Godet correspondence, February and March 1908.

14. NR to HG, Mar. 1, 1908; NR to Thomas Nel, Mar. 2, 1908.

15. NR to HG, Mar. 25, 1908.

16. Diary entries June, July, and August 1908. NR to HG, Sept. 1, 1908.

17. NR to HG, Sept. 8, 1908.

18. “You could put your dressing table in front of the window of your bedroom,” he noted (HG to NR, Sept. 8, 1908). Having separate bedrooms followed the aristocratic tradition and did not indicate any lack of passion between them. On the contrary, separate bedrooms among the upper classes provided a form of birth control. See McLaren, History of Contraception, 186–87.

19. HG to NR, Sept. 8, 1908. HG made further complaints to NR, Feb. 20 and 28, 1908.

20. NR to HG, Sept. 10, 1908.

21. HG to NR, June 18, 1909. Roussel’s diary entries indicate her spending habits.

22. Diary entries and speaking agenda, 1908–9.

23. Avenir (Tournai), Feb. 8 and 9, 1909. Her brochures sold out in “the blink of an eye,” according to Pensée (Brussels), Feb. 14, 1909; see also ibid., Mar. 7, 1909; Nouvelles, Mar. 5, 1909. Taudière quoted in Soleil, June 6, 1909, reprinted in Courier des Deux-Sèvres, June 15, 1909, and Croix de Belfort, June 20, 1909. Croix de Belfort, Oct. 12, 1909, deplored her influence.

24. Jeanne Tilquin to HG, Feb. 14, 1909 (in envelope with the HG-NR 1909 correspondence).

25. Stora-Lamarre, Enfer de la IIIe République, 179–206. Stora-Lamarre notes that the censorship laws were so vague that they could easily be used for political purposes, and were.

26. Elosu, Amour infécond; Guerrand, Libre maternité, 68–69.

27. APP Ba 381, Direction générale des recherches, and separate report, May 27, 1908; report to the prefect of police, “Conférence organisée par le groupe ‘Génération consciente,’” Oct. 27, 1908.

28. Humbert, Eugène Humbert, 90. According to the law, the publisher of “affronts to indecency” was responsible, not the author.

29. Ibid., 91.

30. AN F⁷ 13955, Commissaire de Police de Sottevile-lès-Rouen, Feb. 8, 1908.

31. IISG, Humbert Archives, # 337, Proceedings of the trial of Humbert and Liard Courtois before the Rouen court of appeal, 1909–10.

32. Ibid. See also Humbert, Eugène Humbert, 85–89.

33. Montupet to HG, Aug. 1, 1904. See NR diaries, passim.

34. NR to HG, June 21, 1909.

35. NR to HG, June 21 and 28, 1909.

36. HG to NR, September 1909; Roussel, Quelques lances rompues, 3.

37. NR to HG, Aug. 12, 1909.

38. Mireille to Louise Nel, n.d. and Aug. 13, 1909; HG to NR, Sept. 18, 1909.

39. Roussel appears as witness for Humbert: Paris-Journal, reprinted in Radical, Intransigeant, Petite République, Peuple français, and Libre Parole, all Dec. 1, 1909. Darnaud to NR, Dec. 2, 1909. Roussel responded Dec. 7, 1909: “Why do you expect that I am so less well informed about this subject [of childbirth] than you are?” This time she lambasted him for his refusal to understand: “Many men are in agreement with [me], and since they can’t share our suffering, let them have at least the loyalty to recognize it, to salute it, to deplore it, and above all to admit that we would sometimes like to shield ourselves from it. Apart from this suffering, there are many other reasons not to want to have a lot of children.”

40. IISG, Humbert Archives, # 139, letter from HG to Humbert, Feb. 7, 1910; letter from NR to Darnaud, République de l’Ariège, Mar. 10, 1910. Articles regarding this meeting appeared in the Radical, Feb. 11, 1910; Siècle, Feb. 12, 1910; Nouvelles, Feb. 14, 1910; Féministe (Nice), Feb. 17, 1910; République de l’Ariège (by Darnaud), Feb. 27, 1910; Travailleuses (St. Quentin), March 1910; and Journal des Femmes, March 1910.

41. “Nos Suffragettes: Elles sont trois qui affronteront la lutte électorale,” Matin, Feb. 14, picked up in the Intransigeant, Feb. 15; Est républicain, Feb. 17; Journal d’Alençon, Feb. 17; Bessin (Isigny), Feb. 20; Gil Blas, Feb. 16; Gazette de Bruxelles, Feb. 18; Indépendance roumaine (Bucharest), Mar. 6; and World (New York), Mar. 13; all 1910. Roussel also marked in her notebook of press clippings that there had been announcements of her candidacy in the Journal (Havre), Patriote normand, Petit Béthunois, Avenir de l’Orne, and Journal (Condé), “etc., etc., etc.”

42. NR to HG, Mar. 12, 1910. In this same letter she also relished the fact that people had surrounded her at a funeral she had attended that afternoon. “Nelly Roussel,” she wrote, “has become someone.” The meeting at which she spoke was important not only because it was the first large feminist meeting on the question of suffrage—with particular attention to municipal elections—but deputies and senators spoke in support as well. Articles about the meeting appeared in thirteen provincial papers—most of them in departments to which she had traveled—as well as in Nouvelles; Gil Blas; Figaro; Petite République; and Paris-Journal, all Mar. 12; Temps, Mar. 13; L’Action, Mar. 16; Siècle, Apr. 5; and Journal de Femmes, April 1910.

43. “Meeting de protestation des neo-malthusiens,” Radical, Apr. 1, 1910; “Un Meeting neo-malthusien,” Paris Journal, Apr. 1, 1910;

44. “Le Carnet du jour,” Autorité, Apr. 4, 1910. Information about the meeting, and announcement of the publication of all the speeches in a volume Défendons-nous appeared in the Ouvrier-syndicqué (Marseille); Voix du peuple, Libertaire, and Éclaireur between June 16 and 26, 1910.

45. Darnaud to HG, Feb. 22, 1907; HG to NR, Mar. 12 and May 25, 1910; NR to HG, May 24 and 25, 1910.

46. NR to HG, May 24 and 25, 1910; Elosu to HG, May 24, 1910; HG to NR, May 25 and 27, 1910.

47. HG to NR, May 29 and 31, June 2 and 4, 1910; NR to HG, June 10, 1910.

48. When Roussel’s symptoms became more acute during World War I, she referred to herself as having neurasthenia. See Chapter 6.

49. Ballet, Neurasthenia, 46. Dubois, Psychic Treatment of Nervous Disorders, 18, quoted in Shorter, From Paralysis to Fatigue, 221. Charcot introduced the diagnosis in France at least by 1897 and probably earlier.

50. Ballet, Neurasthenia, 17–18. In the third edition, the authors noted the widespread abuse of the term they had helped popularize in France: “Everybody knows it and makes use of it and, as in the case of all technical terms that have become public property, it has been applied at random.”

51. Ibid., 94–95.

52. The patient was to stay in bed, in a state of “total inactivity” and silence. “She must neither get up nor make use of her own hands under any pretext.” Ibid., 352. Weir Mitchell’s well-known rest cure is terrifyingly described in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper (Boston: Small, Maynard, 1899).

53. Diary entries June 13–Oct. 3, 1910; NR to HG, Sept. 9 and 12, 1910; Mireille to HG, Sept. 12, 1910. Her diary notes that she received several hundred francs from her mother and grandfather over the course of several months.

54. Roussel, Pourquoi elles vont à l’église. This play is published as a pamphlet, though without date or publisher. Roussel’s diary first mentions it when she records reading it to the UFF on Nov. 26, 1910.

55. Roberts, Disruptive Acts, 38.

56. HG to NR, Feb. 19, 1911.

57. “La Conférence Nelly Roussel à Gray,” Indépendant de la H^teSaône (Gray), Mar. 8, 1911.

58. NR to HG, Apr. 2, 5, 6, and 10, May, 7 and 9, 1911.

59. Ronsin, Grève des ventres, 92–115. See also AN F⁷ 13955 and APP Ba 381.

60. “Notre Propagande,” Rénovation, June 15, 1911. When Nelly received the invitation, her grandfather became impassioned with interest, encouraged her, and wanted her to send newspaper accounts of the event immediately afterward. NR to HG, May 9, 1911.

61. NR to HG, May 9 and 24, 1911. “Les Théories néo-malthusiennes: Une Conférencecontradictoire à Auxerre,” Indépendant auxerrois, May 25 and 26, 1911.

62. “Théories néo-malthusiennes,” Indépendant auxerrois, May 25 and 26, 1911.

63. AN F⁷ 13955, report of the prefect of the Yonne to the president of the Council of the Minister of the Interior, Nov. 2, 1911.

64. Ibid., passim.

65. AN F⁷ 13955, “La Propagande neo-malthusienne,” report of Nov. 29, 1911 (Paris).

66. HG to NR, Feb. 11, Apr. 1, May 8 and 16, 1911; NR to HG, Feb. 1 and 3, Apr. 10 and 27, May 9 and 19, 1911.

67. MG to her grandparents, July 25, 1911.

68. NR diary, July 1911–February 1912.

69. Paul Bureau, “La Propagande néo-malthusienne et sa répression” (report to the 2e Congrès national contre la pornographie), in FR, carton 2, Periodiques divers; see also Ronsin and Guerrand, Sexe apprivoisé, 68.

70. Bureau, “Propagande néo-malthusienne,” 1–2. Robin did make the point about “older men and young girls” in his pamphlet Le Secret du bonheur.

71. Bureau, “Propagande néo-malthusienne,” 5–8.

72. Ibid., 10.

73. Ibid., 17.

74. The meeting was summarized in Mauricius, “Une Conférence anti-malthusienne,” Rénovation, Jan. 15, 1913.

75. On natalist discourse and the 1920 law prohibiting neo-Malthusian propaganda, see Roberts, Civilization Without Sexes, 93–119.

76. Giroud, Paul Robin, 291, quoted in Demeulenaere-Douyère, Paul Robin, 387.

77. Demeulenaere-Douyère, Paul Robin, 387–88; NR, Derniers combats, 198.

78. Diary entries, Feb. 17 to Apr. 9, 1913; NR to HG, Mar. 3 1913; HG to NR, Mar. 14, 1913. See Roberts’s insightful analysis in Disruptive Acts, 37–47. Marguerite Durand to NR, Feb. 25, 1913.

79. To emphasize the link between the “real” éclaireuses and the play’s fictional ones, the panel spoke from the actual stage set of the climactic act 3. Coverage of this event and of the lunch that followed appeared in Excelsior, Mar. 21; Nouvelles and Palais, Mar. 15; Loire républicaine, Mar. 17; Comedia, Mar. 14 and 19; Petite République, Havre-Éclair, République de Travailleurs, Tribune républicain (Saint-Étienne), Moniteur de Puy-de-Dôme, and Liberté, Mar. 20; all 1913. NR to HG, Mar. 16, 1913.

80. Roberts, Disruptive Acts, 38.

81. HG to NR May–June, 1913. Unfortunately, her letters from the sanatorium are not in her archive.

82. For example, Henri wrote: “How I would have loved to share this bedroom with you … [where we would] commit a thousand follies…. I love you so much and our separation makes me judge our love still more, which gives me the proof that you alone know how to give me the illusion of youth” (Sept. 4, 1913). In two other letters, he mentions how he “does not look at other women” and says: “All this makes me think that there is only one whose kisses I would eat, the others make me sick, they are always something which is not my dream, and my own dream is not finished, it is a beautiful dream that I already lived for fifteen years and that I continue and that I will begin again…. I prefer to continue because the longer it lasts, the more it becomes delicious, the more my love adapts in the most complete way, more perfect to my ideal and to myself, the better we know each other, the better our forms and our characters marry each other more intimately, this is perhaps a little stupid, but it is very true” (Sept. 25, 1913). Henri had never before made any reference to other women—and those here indirectly suggest that he might have at least been tempted by some extramarital encounters, which would not have been the least unusual in his bohemian milieu. More explicit, however, is his reavowed commitment to her—perhaps more pronounced because he feared losing her.

83. NR to HG, Dec. 23 and 28, 1913; Jan. 1, 4, 11, and 16, 1914.

84. Réné Théophil Hyacinth Laennec (1781–1826) discovered nonpulmonary tuberculosis in his autopsy studies at the beginning of the nineteenth century (Iseman, Clinician’s Guide to Tuberculosis, 5–6, 181–83). The various forms of abdominal tuberculosis include peritoneal, ileocecal, anorectal, and mesenteric lymph node infections. Roussel might have had either of the first two forms, given the symptoms she described: abdominal pain, anorexia, diarrhea/constipation, weight loss—but symptoms of abdominal TB vary widely. The “protean” presentation of the disease also lends itself to frequent diagnostic errors. See Humphries and Lam, “Non-Respiratory Tuberculosis,” in Clinical Tuberculosis, ed. Davies, 187. I thank Michael D. Iseman for his response to my inquiry about Roussel’s symptoms, in which he affirms that they conform to those of abdominal TB. Although there is no way of ascertaining this, it was probably common among Europeans in her day, because of its bovine origins, he notes. “In that era clinicians did not quibble about regular TB or bovine TB; only in recent times have we come to readily distinguish them (primarily because of differences in routes of transmission and prevention)” (email, Apr. 12, 2004).

85. La Faute d’Eve was first published in Mouvement féminin, Sept. 15, 1913.

Six • The Great War

1. Humbert, Eugène Humbert, 152.

2. Bard, Filles de Marianne, 64. See also Darrow, French Women and the First World War, 58, and Grayzel, Women’s Identities at War.

3. Studies of war correspondence have mostly focused on exchanges between the home front and the front line. But France “became a nation of letter writers” during the Great War, Hanna, “Republic of Letters,” notes. Indeed, we learn from one of Mireille’s letters that one of the baccalaureate exam questions in 1918 asked, “Do you think the current tragic events will renew the importance of correspondence, of interest in beauty, and why?” (Mireille to HG June 28, 1918).

4. HG to NR, Aug. 13, 1915, July 24, 1916, Sept. 18, 1917.

5. Note added by NR to letter from MG to Andrée Nel, Aug. 4, 1914.

6. MG to Andrée Nel, August 1914. NR diary, Aug. 11, 1914.

7. Émile Darnaud to NR, n.d. On reactions to the outbreak of war in France, see Darrow, French Women and the First World War, 53–56.

8. NR diary, August–September, 1914. Hausser, Paris au jour le jour, 542.

9. Leonard V. Smith et al., France and the Great War, 40.

10. Ibid., 39; Becker, Great War, 48–49; Bard, Filles de Marianne, 58.

11. Bard, Filles de Marianne, 51–52. Amélie Hammer, president of the UFF—the one feminist association in which Roussel most consistently participated—was firmly anti-pacifist. Darrow, French Women in the First World War, 66, 78–86; Thébaud, Femme au temps de la guerre de 14, 112–18. For Mireille’s soldier, see FR, carton 5, “Guerre 1914–1918.” Her “fileul de guerre” was Arthur Loriette, husband and father of two little girls. He sent Mireille pictures of himself and his wife and daughters; his correspondence from the trenches was generally fairly upbeat and devoid of detail.

12. Caroline Kauffmann to NR, Dec. 14, 1914.

13. NR diary, August 1914; Bard, Filles de Marianne, 58–59.

14. Letter from NR quoted in “Pour la jeunesse féminine,” Humanité, Nov. 30, 1914.

15. FR, carton 3, dossier 4, L. Frier to NR, Jan. 11, Jan. 25, Feb. 12, and Apr. 13, 1915. Hers was not the only article to be suppressed, and the editors concluded that the censors were not just acting in the interests of national defense but using their power to suppress feminism.

16. Nelly-Roussel, “Notre idéal,” Équité, Apr. 15, 1915.

17. FR, carton 2, Urbain Gohier, “Les Gardiennes du foyer,” Journal, Nov. 15, 1915.

18. FR, carton 2, “Coupures de la presse, les femmes et la guerre.”

19. NR, “Quelques réflexions sur la guerre,” Libre Pensée internationale, Dec. 12, 1914.

20. See NR, “Atrocités,” Libre Pensée internationale, Feb. 6, 1915; letter from the editor to NR, Feb. 9, 1915, as well as other letters regarding censorship of her articles in FR, carton 5, “Guerre de 1914–18,” and carton 8, “Correspondence.” The editor wrote, “The police commissioner of Evian believed it necessary to hold our journal because of your article. We live in a very difficult moment; in Switzerland we have been subjected to censorship for the past six months, and now in France we have been sequestered. Your article is very good, very well thought out; it caught the attention of our friends in Lausanne…. We do not wish to give up the fight, we believe ourselves on the right path, and shall continue to make the voice of reason heard. I like to think that you, too, will remain faithful. Give me the address of the person to whom you desire the journal to be sent in Germany; up to this point the issues are very successful among our subscribers.” Marianne Rauze, the founder of L’Équité, bitterly complained about what the censors had done to Roussel’s article. “I’ll publish either everything or nothing,” she proclaimed, and she asked Roussel to go with her to the minister of the interior to protest the censorship. Rauze to NR, Feb. 8, 1915; see also L. Frier to NR, Apr. 13, 1915.

21. FR, carton 5, manuscripts; NR, “Pour le salut de nos blessés” (MS).

22. Ibid.

23. Ibid.; Nelly-Roussel, “Notre idéal,” Équité, Apr. 15, 1915.

24. Bard, Filles de Marianne, 94–99. One thousand delegates came from the Netherlands, 47 from the United States, 28 from Germany, 16 from Sweden, 16 from Austria-Hungary, 12 from Norway, 6 from Denmark, 5 from Belgium, 3 from England, 2 from Canada, and 1 from Italy. The Congress formulated resolutions for peace, justice, and democracy that inspired Wilson’s Fourteen Points.

25. NR, “Mégères austro-boches,” Libre Pensée internationale, May 15. Marianne Rauze, editor of L’Équité, read this article at her freethinkers’ meeting and at that of the Socialist Women of the L’Eure and Loir Federation to great audience appreciation; she invited Roussel to speak again and complimented her on her courageous attitude in the face of current blindness; history, she said, would recognize Roussel as an admirable pioneer. FR, carton 8, Marianne Rauze to NR, n.d.

26. NR diary, Mar. 14, 1915; speaking agenda, 1915 and 1916; Française d’aujourd’hui, March 1916.

27. NR diaries, passim. She marked the first day of her period with an “x,” and often indicated nothing else but “repos” or “repos au lit.” “Colcotar” refers to ferric oxide. See Mireille to HG, Sept. 19; NR to HG, July 9, Aug. 17, Oct. 11, and Oct. 23, 1917, and June 28, 1918.

28. HG to NR, 1915 correspondence.

29. Roussel recorded in her diary, and sometimes kept an account of, money that her mother gave her, usually 250–300 francs at a time, and sometimes 600 francs. Several times in 1918, Montupet sent them money orders for 500 or 600 francs. See Montupet to HG, Sept. 15 and 17, 1917; HG to Montupet, Sept. 15, 1917; HG to NR, Sept. 7, 1915. Godet noted: “Pépé, to whom I wanted to talk to about oil and steel responded to me with [a lecture about] Vichy pastilles and morning enemas on an empty stomach. He again took out these old claptrap speeches in a lecture that wouldn’t end until nightfall.” Godet called him “sontupet.” HG to NR, Sept. 15 and 16, 1917; Oct. 19, 1917.

30. HG to NR, May 11 and 13, 1915.

31. HG to NR, May 11, 12, 13, 15, and 17, 1915; NR diary, May 1915; NR to HG, May 14, 1915.

32. NR to HG, July 26; Montupet to HG, July 19, 1915.

33. Roussel also had to conceal from her stepfather the newspapers she was reading, saying she had read an article in the Petit Parisien and then the principle news in Matin: “Don’t tell Pépé.” Ironically, Jeanne and her family “agree completely with Pépé on all questions concerning the war. I avoid discussing it with them. But all the same, I read Humanité every day.” NR to HG, May 14 and 18, 1915.

34. Henri to Montupet, May 18, 1915.

35. NR to HG, July 1, 22, and 26, 1915; HG to NR, July 24 and 27, 1915.

36. HG to NR, July 24 and 29 and Aug. 3, 1915. NR to HG, Aug. 1, 1915.

37. NR to HG, Aug. 2 and 6, Sept. 1 and 11, 1915; HG to NR, Aug. 29, 1915. Efforts to evoke the dead in such a manner became more common during World War I. See Winter, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning, 54–77.

38. Mireille visited in mid August and wrote to her father: “I found Mama on the milk cure and tired. She tried your remedy before you advised her to, she didn’t take lacto-lacine for two days, which caused an intense crisis of intoxication and obliged her to put herself on milk yesterday. Today she is a little better, but still being a bit tired, she is very happy to have me as her secretary.” Mireille to HG, Aug. 15, 1915.

39. HG to NR, Aug. 25; NR to HG, Sept. 11, 1915.

40. HG to NR, Aug. 16, Sept. 3 and 12, 1915.

41. HG to NR 23, June 28, 1915; copies of the cards are in the Musée d’Orsay, Documentation, Sculptors, Henri Godet. The content of these cards offers another sign of Godet’s ability to overcome his principles in his desperate attempt to earn money. These fascinating images include “Victory” (a woman with two young girls standing atop dead German soldiers), “Justice Pursuing Crime” (crime represented by a German soldier), “Judgment of History” (German soldier being judged for war crimes); “Belgium Liberated” (French soldiers rescuing a woman from German soldiers), and “Glory” (victorious French soldiers).

42. For Fritz Robin, NR’s diary Oct. 5, 11, and 12, Nov. 15, 1914. Paul Nel was called up immediately, and it was apparently Montupet who succeeded in getting him a deferment. HG to NR, Aug. 5, 1915.

43. NR to HG, Aug. 2, HG to NR, Aug. 3, NR to HG, Aug. 6, 1915.

44. HG to NR, Sept. 13, 15 and 30, 1915; HG to NR Aug. 14, Oct. 8, 1916, Sept. 24, 1917. In 1917, Godet listed “sculptor” as his occupation on the carnet du pain (bread ration coupon).

45. “Yesterday Mireille was joyous about leaving for the front—she is going to hear cannons—happily she will still be far away from them,” Henri wrote Nelly (HG to NR, June 28, 1915).

46. Mireille to NR, July 25, 1915, and subsequent correspondence; Mireille to HG, two postcards, July 5 and 12, 1915; postcard to NR, July 12, 1915. Among items censored were “All postcards depicting scenes or bearing legends likely to have a bad influence on the morale of the army or the population” (Becker, Great War, 49). Carton 5, correspondence, 1914–1918, Marcel Noble to HG Dec. 14, 1914, and June 15, 1915. Noble asked Montupet and Godet to keep the news of his amputation absolutely secret. The correspondence from friends contains much news of this sort. Particularly difficult for Mireille was the death of the boyfriend of a teacher with whom she was very close. See Mireille to NR and HG, Sept. 18, 1917; to NR, October, n.d. (1917).

47. Mireille to NR, July 9, 1916; July 3–4, 5, 8–12, 1917; HG to NR, July 9, 1917. Mireille to HG and NR, Apr. 6 and 8, 1914. Reform of the baccalaureate program in 1902 made it an easier option for girls to pursue, and teachers began to encourage them to do so as a means of creating more opportunities for respectable careers. See Margadant, Madame le Professeur, 217; Francoise Mayeur, Éducation des filles, 149–79, and Enseignement sécondaire, 377–98.

48. HG to NR, Sept. 16, 1916; Mireille to NR, Oct. 21, 1916.

49. Mireille to NR, June 20 and July 25, 1915. For more examples of Mireille’s protective stance toward Nelly, see Mireille to HG and NR, July 12, 1915; to HG, July 25 and Aug. 15, 1915, Sept. 5, 1916, Sept. 13 and 19, 1917; to NR, Sept. 27 and Oct. 15, 1916, Sept. 27, Oct. n.d., and Oct. 13–14, 1917. Mireille and Nelly also shared intellectual and feminist interests. Mireille read a novel by the feminist Hellé (a.k.a. Marguerite Dreyfus), Nelly’s friend, that scandalized Louise Nel, and translated feminist articles in English for her. Mireille to NR, June 23 and Aug. 28, 1915, June 25, 1916.

50. Typical were the following instructions Mireille sent to her father when he was in Paris with Marcel: “What he is he becoming! My devil of a brother! Tell him that he has to redo everything that he has done up to now in English and that he has to repeat orally the homework he already finished. Without this, he will forget everything. Hug him for me (if he has worked hard) and keep for yourself lots of good kisses from Mama and me.” HG to NR, July 26, 1915; Mireille to HG, Aug. 15, 1915, and to NR, May 16, 1915.

51. HG to NR, June 23, Aug. 29, and Sept. 3, 1915; Mireille to HG, Sept. 12 and 15, 1915. When Marcel went off for a month in September 1915 to a children’s program in Agon (Manche), aged 11, Henri wrote that he felt lonely without him, saying, “this kid is a little tiresome, but he has that in common with all kids.” While away, Marcel continued to infuriate his grandparents, parents, and sister, only this time by his silence; he rarely wrote to any of them.

52. HG to NR, July 9, 1915. Roussel expressed the same concerns about Marcel disrupting her silence and tranquility the following summer as well, but he nonetheless joined her, Louise Nel, and Mireille for a water and rest cure in Bourbon l’Archambault; he infuriated her when he put tadpoles into the thermal baths and made so much noise playing tennis that he annoyed other guests. NR to HG, July 3, 6, and 28, Aug. 14 and 21, 1916. On the other hand, Marcel was very bright and able to do well in school if he applied himself, which he did occasionally. Henri wrote proudly of Marcel’s academic success, and said to Nelly: “Glory to Marcel, celebrate his genius.” HG to NR, July 23 and Aug 22, 1916.

53. NR diary, Feb. 27, 1912.

54. The correspondence from Mathilde is located in FR, carton 6, and dates mostly from 1918 and 1919. Mireille to HG, July 8, 1918; HG to NR, July 12, 1917; NR to HG, Sept. 30, 1916. Roussel referred to a letter from Mathilde in which the latter wrote of her boredom and impatience with Roussel’s absence. For the leverage Mathilde exercised, see especially the family correspondence of 1918.

55. Roussel, “Ivresse,” Ma forêt, 12: “Heure d’exaltation trop brève, / À ma souffrance exquise trêve, / Sublime bonheur d’un moment, / Réalité plus belle que le rêve, / Je viens, dans l’été qui s’achève, / Chercher votre éblouissement. / Je viens, vibrant comme une lyre, / Clamer ma joie et mon délire / Me plonger, ivre, en ta splendeur, / Qui tour à tour m’enchante et me déchire, / Automne, héroique sourire / De la Nature qui se meurt.”

56. Roussel, Ma forêt, 6. NR to HG, June 27, 1916. She was particularly happy in this letter because she had been able to “digest white beans with their skin,” an indication of how difficult digestion had become for her.

57. See correspondence from Mireille, Marcel, and NR to HG, summer 1916 and 1917. Montupet had bought the children cameras and bicycles, and Marcel built and attached a cart to his bicycle so that he could give Nelly rides through the forest. HG to NR, Sept. 3, 1916; NR to HG, Sept. 7, 1916.

58. NR to HG, July 3 and 28, Aug. 21, 1916; Oct. 3, 1917. For her falling out with Andrée, NR to HG, Oct. 10, 1916; Aug. 15, Oct. 3 and 11, 1917. The letter of October 3 indicates that Andrée discussed her sister’s behavior with Mathilde, another sign of the relative intimacy that the family had with this domestic servant. The sisters’ fight deeply troubled Montupet, and it renewed his anger at Henri for not having told him about it immediately (Montupet to HG, Sept. 15, 1917).

59. HG to NR, Oct. 17, 1917.

60. She sent her poems to Mme Hammer, Marie-Thérèse Gil-Baer, and Mmes Bien-aimé and Beal. See diary, Nov. 13 and 17, and NR to HG, Oct. 10, 1916. Mireille gave them to her teachers (Mireille to NR, Oct. 3–4, 1917). Roussel also sent poems to the wife of Henri’s business partner, Del Pozo. The Del Pozos had visited the Godets in Barbizon and named their baby girl after Nelly.

61. NR to HG, Oct. 18 and 23, 1917. Ballet, Neurasthenia, 272–73; see NR diary entries for November and December 1917.

62. NR diary, 1918; Great Britain, Ministry of Information, Chronology of the [Great] War, ed. Gleichen et al., vol. 3: 1918, table, p. 14; Fierro, Histoire et dictionnaire de Paris, 221; Hauser, Paris au jour le jour. On the night of March 11–12, sirens caused such panic at a metro station serving as a refuge that sixty-two people were trampled to death by a crowd. For the exodus, see Becker, Great War, 310–12.

63. Mireille and HG to Louise Montupet, Apr. 2, 1918.

64. Mireille and NR to Louise Montupet, Apr. 13 and 26 and June 19, 1918.

65. HG to the Montupets, n.d., May 1918.

66. NR to Louise Nel, Apr. 13 and 18, May 1, 1918; HG to the Montupets, Apr. 26, 1918.

67. NR to HG, June 23, 1918

68. Mireille to the Montupets, June 29–30, 1918; Marcel to the Montupets, July 4, 1918; Marcel to HG, July 8, 1918.

69. NR to Louise Nel, July 7, 1918.

70. HG to NR, July 5, 1918.

71. HG to NR, June 30 and July 14, 1918. The reference to what “everyone” thought once again provoked comments about the theories regarding crowd behavior. It reminded Henri of a book he had found in their library about “the soul of the crowd,” which Darnaud had probably given to Nelly. In it, he read that the “crowd is more stupid than the individual,” leading him to think that public opinion must therefore be distrusted. Unlike most other people, Henri remained convinced that the bombardment and the war itself would continue indefinitely. “The soul [âme] of the crowd always turns a man into the ass [âne] of the crowd,” he wrote, indulging in the wordplay he so loved. Nearly four years after his death, Darnaud continued to influence both Henri and Nelly, as did the crowd psychology theory of Gustave Le Bon.

72. NR to HG, July 17, 1918; Mireille to HG, July 22, 1918.

73. Mireille to HG, July 16, Aug. 7, 1918; NR to HG, July 18 and 20, 1918; Mireille and NR to HG, July 30, 1918; NR to HG, Aug. 3 and 6, 1918. Roussel quoted the proverb, “Often the fear of something bad drives us to something worse.” In this case, “fleeing the Gothas and Berthas, we have jumped into the throat of a wolf, represented in the occurrence of flu, bronchitis, and other horrible maladies.” She begged him to locate his headquarters in Grenoble instead of Lyon. Henri responded that her attitude toward the Lyonnais climate was “laughable. One would think that we’re talking about going to the Congo” (n.d., August 1918). Mireille also pressured her father on Nelly’s behalf; she argued that wood and coal would be more expensive in Lyon, and that milk would be impossible to obtain for Nelly.

74. NR, Mireille, and Marcel to HG, July 8, 1918; NR to HG, July 17 and 18, 1918; Mireille to HG, Aug. 7, 1918. Against his mother’s instructions, Marcel went swimming in a river on a very hot day after having eaten. At the same time, Marcel seemed to be doing constructive things. Henri asked him to run errands for his business, which he had apparently done effectively, and he was learning how to be a baker in the local boulangerie. Overall, he seems to have contributed to the family’s well-being (e.g., finding the La Balme residence) but does not seem to have got much credit for the positive things he accomplished. Marcel apologized to his mother and made promises to improve his behavior, but Nelly had little faith that he would change.

75. NR to HG, Aug. 20, 1918; NR diary, August and September 1918.

76. Kolata, Flu, 3–14.

77. Zylberman, “Holocaust,” 193–94. In Paris alone, 10,281 flu deaths occurred from June 1918 through April 1919. Determining the exact mortality rate is extremely difficult, because many cases went unreported, or symptoms were not properly diagnosed; often victims died of secondary infections, especially pneumonia; Fierro, Histoire et dictionnaire, 222; Iezzoni, Influenza 1918, 201; Hausser, Paris au jour le jour, 685.

78. Delumeau and Lequin, eds., Malheurs des temps, 419; Hausser, Paris au jour le jour, 693; Fierro, Histoire et dictionnaire, 222; Zylberman, “Holocaust in a Holocaust,” 194.

79. NR to HG, Sept. 15, Oct. 21, 28, and 29, 1918; Hausser, Paris au jour le jour, 694.

80. NR to Louise Nel, Nov. 29, 1918; NR, diary, Nov. 25, 1918. Madeleine Vernet was a feminist who extolled motherhood; her journal focused on its social function. Roussel privately dismissed Vernet, whose feminism was far more conservative than hers.

81. NR, diary, Dec. 12, 15, 21, and 22, 1918; NR to Louise Nel, Dec. 31, 1918.

82. NR to Louise Nel, Dec. 16, 1918. Mireille to Louise Nel, Dec. 18, 1918.

83. HG to the Montupets, Dec. 22, 23, 24, and 25, 1918.

84. HG, correspondence cited in the preceding note.

85. Roussel, “Invincible Croyance,” Ma forêt, 15.

Seven • Last Battles

1. NR to HG, July 15 and 18, 1919.

2. Leonard V. Smith et al., France and the Great War, 158–59.

3. Of those mobilized, 63 percent either died or were mutilated, a percentage that exceeded that of any other country. France mobilized 8,410,000 men, of whom 1,358,000 died, 1,040,000 became permanent invalids, and 3,000,000 became semi-invalids. Sowerwine, France since 1870, 117. Precise figures for World War I are impossible to determine, and these differ somewhat from those given by Winter, Great War, 75, who cites 7,891,000 Frenchmen mobilized, and 1,327,800 killed. Another source, citing the same statistics as Sowerwine for mobilized, killed, and wounded adds 537,000 missing among French troops, with an overall casualty rate of as high as 76.3 percent (www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWdeaths.htm [accessed December 15, 2005]). This rate was the highest among all the sixteen countries listed; the rate was 52.3 percent for the Allied powers, 62.7 percent for the Central Powers, and 57.6 percent overall. On other losses, see Sowerwine: the number of marriages that took place in 1915 was only 30 percent of the number in 1913; the 1921 census counted 6,216,000 women in the 20–39 age group and only 5,178,000 men. France lost around 900,000 buildings, 9,000 factories, 200 coal mines, 6,000 bridges, and 2,400 kilometers of rail lines.

4. Harris, “‘Child of the Barbarian.’” Several public figures—and purportedly even a Catholic priest—suggested that women should abort the fetuses of German fatherhood. A journalistic debate ensued, and in March 1915, a ministerial directive sought to prevent abortion by allowing women to give their children up for public care, with falsified birth certificates. See also Bard, Filles de Marianne, 61–64.

5. Horne, “Soldiers, Civilians and the Warfare of Attrition,” and Leonard V. Smith, “Masculinity, Memory, and the French First World War Novel.” Jay Winter and Blaine Baggett’s documentary The Great War and the Shaping of the Twentieth Century (1996) shows poignant footage of soldiers who came out of the war with shell shock, lost limbs, and deformed faces.

6. Perrot, “New Eve and the Old Adam”; Leonard V. Smith, “Masculinity, Memory and the French First World War Novel”; Roberts, Civilization Without Sexes, 37–41.

7. Audoin-Rouzeau, Men at War, 129–33.

8. Daniel Sherman further notes the discomfort after 1918 with women’s wartime agricultural activities: “For if women could generate life on their own, in the absence of able-bodied men, what could compel them to resume their subordinate roles once the men returned? The many references to men’s ‘seed’ in other dedication speeches can plausibly be read as an attempt to shut down such potentially subversive meanings, to restore to the phallus its preponderant role in procreation, making women, as it were, once again safe for insemination” (Sherman, Construction of Memory, 303–5). Leonard V. Smith et al., France and the Great War, 162–63; Harris, “‘Child of the Barbarian’”; Darrow, French Women and the First World War, 5. See also Urbain Gohier quoted on p. 177 above.

9. Roberts, Civilization Without Sexes, 91.

10. NR speaking agenda, 1919.

11. Klejman and Rochefort, Égalité en marche, 196–97. Bard, Filles de Marianne, 118. For a fascinating analysis of Céline Renooz (and other French women writers), see Allen, Poignant Relations.

12. One such attack concerned bourgeois women’s use of household domestics, which sparked a debate in L’Humanité, May 23 and June 1, 5, 14, 18, and 26, 1919. Roussel participated; she foresaw a time when all women would have professions, and would need “household workers”—a term she preferred to “maid.” Such workers, she hoped, would be unionized and their work would become a métier (trade).

13. Bard, Filles de Marianne, 122; Klejman and Rochefort, Égalité en marche, 197–98, 206.

14. FR, carton 2. This masthead, drawn by Marie-Thérèse Gil-Baer, only appeared in 1922. Bard, Filles de Marianne, 262; Hause, with Kenney, Women’s Suffrage and Social Politics, 216–17; Klejman and Rochefort, Égalité en marche, 197.

15. Louise Bodin to NR, June 18, 1919 (two letters). Bodin shared her contempt for the moderate Union française pour la suffrage des femmes (French Union for Women’s Suffrage) and its leader Cécile Bruschvicg (1877–1946), the recipient of a 100,000-franc annuity, who thought that having a child was easy and that feminists should persuade working-class women to have more.

16. NR, “Les Femmes et la guerre,” Voix des femmes, Oct. 9, 1919; Magdeleine Marx, “Les Femmes et la guerre: Réponse à Madame Nelly Roussel,” ibid., Oct. 19, 1919; ibid., NR, “Les Femmes et la guerre: Réplique à Mme Magdeleine Marx,” Nov. 6, 1919.

17. NR, “La Règne de l’homme,” Voix des femmes, Apr. 22, 1920; “Les Vrais Assassins,” Mère éducatrice, April 1920.

18. FR, carton 8, Colonel Jean Converset to NR, Dec. 31, 1919, Feb. 5, 1920, Mar. 12, 1920, Apr. 22, 1920. He died in November 1924; articles about him appeared in Mère éducatrice, Dec. 18, 1924, and November 1925.

19. Jean-Marie Mayeur, Vie politique, 254–58; Wright, France in Modern Times, 322–23.

20. “Scrutin de folie: Après les elections legislatives,” Voix des femmes, Dec. 4, 1919, and Libre Pensée internationale, Dec. 3, 1919.

21. APP F⁷ 13955. To evade censorship and police surveillance, Giroud wrote under the pseudonym “Georges Hardy”; after the third issue, the paper was shut down. Giroud then changed its name to La Grande Question. Letter from NR, Jan. 18, 1917, published in Neo-Malthusien, June 1917. Eugène Humbert remained in Spain until July 1919, fearing prosecution if he returned (he was 44 when the war broke out, but men up to age 47 were subject to the draft.) Shortly after his return, an anonymous letter, signed by a “mother who lost her son during the war,” alerted the police about the “draft dodger,” and two agents came to find him. He was not home at the time, and they did not return. Shortly thereafter, he rejoined Giroud in neo-Malthusian propaganda. APP F⁷ 13955, police reports of Feb. 2 and May 31, 1916. See also Jeanne Humbert’s recollections in Eugène Humbert, 173.

22. NR, “Sotise et impudeur,” Neo-Malthusien, March 1919; “Posons nos conditions!” République intégral, December 1919.

23. NR, “Le Tocsin,” Voix des femmes, Jan. 8, 1920; reprinted in Neo-Malthusien.

24. NR, “La Médaille des mères,” Voix des femmes, June 3, 1920. See n. 8 above and sources cited there. Roussel would never have supported eugenics because of her strong belief in individual liberty. Her preference for the terms “conscious motherhood” or “liberty of motherhood” over “neo-Malthusianism” distinguished her from those in the movement who were eugenicists.

25. NR, “La ‘Journée des Mères de Familles nombreuses’” Voix des femmes, May 9, 1920, and “La Médaille des mères,” ibid., June 3, 1920.

26. Guerrand and Ronsin, Sexe apprivoisé, 69.

27. AN F⁷ 13955; “Un Scandal: Qu’attend le gouvernment?” Democratie nouvelle, Dec. 18, 1919; APP Ba 381, letter to Maurice Barrès from M. Pelissier, 106 rue Monge, May 29, 1919; police report of Sept. 18, 1919.

28. APP Ba 381 prov. The police had an abiding fear of the neo-Malthusian influence on working-class women. See, e.g., report of prefect of police to the minister of the interior, June 21, 1913, and AN f/7/13955, report from the Central Commissary of Police in Tourcoing to the general controller of administrative police services (the minister of the interior), May 19, 1914.

29. AN F⁷ 13955, F. Blanc, ingenieur des mines, president du Groupement économique des industries françaises, “Congrès de Nancy: Le Problème de la natalité et les manoeuvres allemandes” (1919); report of E. Laurent, prefect of police, to the minister of interior, May 31, 1916; a report dated Feb. 28, 1916, from the Paris Prefecture of Police, noted how many children Humbert had “lost for France.”

30. AN F⁷ 13955, “Le Problème de la natalité: Le Gouvernement et les manoeuvres allemandes.”

31. “Contre les ennemis de la race française,” Action française, May 10, 1920.

32. A.B., “Le Meeting de St-Ouen,” Voix de femmes, May 13, 1920.

33. NR, “De lâcheté au cynisme,” Voix des femmes, June 24, 1920.

34. Ibid.

35. Humbert, Eugène Humbert, 175–78; Guerrand and Ronsin, Sexe apprivoisé, 69–70; Roberts, Civilization Without Sexes, 93–119, and Pedersen, Legislating the French Family, 162–91.

36. Guerrand and Ronsin, Sexe apprivoisé, 71, 72. They refer to Professor Balthazard, whose lecture on December 13, 1920, at the Faculty of Medicine was published the following year in Progrès medical, but they offer no further citation. Ironically, the “pornographic” element in the propaganda he cited (which had nothing to do with Roussel) was not instruction on contraceptive devices but advice on the commonly practiced coitus interruptus followed by mutual masturbation.

37. Roberts, Society Without Sexes, 111; Ronsin, Grève des ventres, Pedersen, Feminism, Theater, and Republican Politics, 164–66 and passim.

38. Huss, “Pronatalism and the Popular Ideology of the Child.” These cards were the sort of kitsch against which Godet’s more artistic, allegorical postcards could not compete (see Chapter 6 above). NR, “Notes de la semaine,” Voix des femmes, Dec. 8, 1921. Roussel said she was not surprised that, after having suffered so many births, the mother of nine would not be able to think rationally. But she also suspected that the words came, not from the woman, but from the bourgeois newspaper.

39. NR, “La ‘Totale liberté,’” Voix des femmes, Nov. 4, 1920.

40. Humbert, Eugène Humbert, 181–84; AN F⁷ 13955, police report on Marie Aline Blanc (Jeanne Humbert’s mother), Jeanne (Humbert) Rigaudin, and Eugène Humbert, Nov. 19, 1920.

41. Sonn, Anarchism and Cultural Politics, 19–20.

42. NR, “La ‘Totale liberté,’” Voix des femmes, Nov. 4, 1920; “La Loi ‘super-scélérate’?” ibid., June 23, 1921; “Inconscience? … ou hypocrisie?” ibid., July 7, 1921; “La Loi superscélérate,” Lutte féministe pour le communisme, June 25, 1921. Roussel’s belief in the rights of all human beings was genuine and deeply committed.

43. NR, letter in Voix des femmes, June 29, 1921.

44. NR, “Education,” Mère éducatrice, March; “Education,” Voix des femmes, July 14, Dec. 22; “Programme ‘bourgeois’?” ibid., Aug. 11; “Féminisme et révolution,” ibid., Dec. 22; all 1921.

45. NR, “‘Masculinisme’ inconscient,” Voix des femmes, Sept. 29; “Nécessité du féminisme,” ibid., Nov. 17; “Glanes,” ibid., Jan. 5; all 1922.

46. Davy, Une Femme.

47. The meeting took place, according to Roussel’s agenda, on Apr. 10, 1920, and was summarized in “Le Meeting de La Voix de femmes,” Populaire, Apr. 12, 1920, and Voix des femmes, Apr. 15, 1920.

48. Davy, Une Femme, 242–43; “Lettre ouverte à Madame Nelly Roussel,” Voix des femmes, July 8, 1920. Charlotte Davy to NR, Apr. 13, 1922; id. to HG, Dec. 25, 1922. Her other books were Le Roman de mon oncle; Lettres; Judith la Juive; and Savoir pardonner.

49. NR, “L’Ecole des propagandists,” Voix des femmes, Dec. 2, 1920; and NR diaries 1920–22. There is no record of how many students took these classes.

50. “La ‘Noël humaine’: Allocution de Nelly-Roussel,” Voix des femmes, Dec. 30, 1920.

51. Henriette Sauret, “In Memoriam: Nelly-Roussel la généreuse,” Voix des femmes, Jan. 15, 1933.

52. André Lorulot, “Nelly Roussel,” national radio address, published in Idée libre, August–September 1955, 184. Lorulot had been her colleague in anticlericalism, anarchism, and freethinking.

53. When regretting that she would not be able to participate in a pro-Russian demonstration in December 1919, she wrote privately that “the fatigues of propaganda” had put her in a state of “fragile” health. Her retreat was “momentary” and had not in any way “cooled or weakened the ardor of her convictions.” NR to “Madame,” Dec. 13, 1919. For other such examples, see NR, “La Nécessité du féminisme,” Voix des femmes, Nov. 17, 1921; Ce qu’il faut dire, Jan. 27, 1917.

54. NR to HG, Sept. 8, Oct. 10 1921.

55. NR, “Anniversaire,” Voix des femmes, Feb. 2, 1922.

56. HG to NR, Feb. 24, 1922.

57. HG to NR, Jan. 28; Feb. 2, 4, 7, 12, 13, 17, 19, 21, and 24, 1922. Diary entries, Mar. 27–29, 1922. The results of the x-rays are only referred to later, in NR to Marcel, June 17, 1922. For evidence that Pagnier knew she had pulmonary tuberculosis at this time and told Henri, see Dr. Pagnier to HG, Jan. 11, 1923.

58. Pagnier to HG, Jan. 11, 1923. On conspiracies of concealment around TB, see Sontag, Illness as Metaphor, 6–7.

59. Diary entries Apr. 14–May 20, 1922. Charlotte Davy learned the true nature of Roussel’s illness from others. Roussel welcomed her as a confidante, which testified to her genuine ability to cross class boundaries in her emotional commitments. Davy urged Roussel to take care of herself, and then proclaimed a truth that others did not realize, “Yes, I understand how inaction must weigh you down, you who are so combative and so active, but you must give in to the force of things … you must take it upon yourself to turn your mind away from everything that can make you sad” (Davy to NR, Apr. 13, 1922). Roussel wrote to Davy on Apr. 23 and 26, and Davy visited her on May 17 in the midst of her severe intestinal crisis—when she saw almost no one else beyond family.

60. NR, “Le Front unique des femmes,” Voix des femmes, May 25, 1922.

61. NR to Marcel, June 17, 1922.

62. NR to HG, postcard, n.d., June or July 1920. She also worried more over practical matters, particularly the price of her “cure,” which was much steeper than Dr. Pagnier had led her and Godet to believe it would be. Though her mother gave her 1,000 francs when she entered Lamotte Beuvron, that was not sufficient, and Nelly was irritated that Henri wanted her to discuss the details of bills with her doctors; she feared that she would be considered unreasonably demanding and “eccentric.” She threatened to return home. Diary entries, June 28–July 18; NR to HG, postcards (of Lamotte Beuvron), n.d., June–July 1922.

63. Mireille to HG, Aug. 28, 1922. Mireille quoted the clinic director to the effect that “all the precautions I shall have to take will be inspired by the fear of heredity far more than my current state of health.” Henri insisted she have chest x-rays even when her symptoms improved. Despite the discovery of the TB bacillus in 1882, the belief that it was hereditary persisted. See Herzlich and Pierret, Illness and Self in Society, 28; Barnes, Making of a Social Disease, 51.

64. NR to Mireille and Marcel, Aug. 24, 1922. Although she could barely find the energy to write, she continued to remark on Marcel’s letter-writing skills, telling him how much she appreciated the quantity and quality of his correspondence. “These are real letters, alive and not taxing homework.” But she then criticized him for the wrong date in his letter, for a contradiction in his narrative, and for mistakes in typing her poetry (NR to Marcel, Sept. 6, 1922).

65. NR to Juliette Robin, Sept. 2–3, 1922.

66. FR, carton 4, HG, memoir “Lamotte Beuvron.”

67. NR to HG, Sept. 10, 11 (postcard), 1922. HG, carton 4, memoir, “Buzenval.”

68. HG, “Buzenval.” The experimental treatment he mentioned was “caleophare.”

69. Ibid. HG to NR, Nov. 24, 1922.

70. HG, “Buzenval.”

71. Mireille to HG, Sept. 15, 1922. Mireille’s ignorance about Nelly’s state is further indicated in letters to Henri (Sept. 27, Oct. 17, 1922) in which she expresses her happiness at the “good news” about her mother.

72. Mireille to HG, Nov. 10, 14, and 19, Dec. 12, 1922.

73. HG to NR, Nov. 24, 1922. He added her response to this letter.

74. Hélène Raymonol (Laguerre’s daughter) to HG, Dec. 20, 1922; Odette Laguerre to HG, Dec. 21, 1922. Juliette Robin also promised to conceal the news from Mireille, and did not write to her until January 17, “apprehensive about discussing the subject that preoccupied them both.” She said Nelly “illuminated her existence.” Juliette Robin to HG, Dec. 20, 1922; id. to Mireille, Jan. 17, 1922.

75. Louise Nel to Mireille, Dec. 22, 1922. This estimated attendance is based on the signatures of the guest book. Marguerite Durand, who did attend, was deeply upset that she had only found out only the night before, and by accident, because she was staying at different address and had been very ill. Marguerite Durand to HG, Dec. 31, 1922; see other correspondence to Henri in FR, carton 6.

76. Voix des femmes devoted the first two pages of its Jan. 4, 1923, issue to many of these eulogies, with a large portrait of Roussel and excerpts of her speeches and articles on the front page.

77. “X” (Marbel), “Mme Nelly Roussel, écrivain et conférencière,” Paris—Notabilités étrangères, December 1911; Noëlie Drous quoted Marbel in “Nos pierrres noires,” Voix des femmes, Dec. 13, 1923. A. Bailly, “Les Livres,” Voix libertaire, Dec. 24, 1932.

78. Durand’s eulogy in Voix des femmes, Jan. 4, 1923. Marguerite Durand to HG, Dec. 31, 1922. Durand declared herself both guilty and remorseful in this very moving and candid letter. She apologized for not having spoken the way she had wanted to at the funeral, explaining that she had learned of Roussel’s death only at the last minute and by chance. “I suffered both morally and physically at the cemetery. You must have perceived it. Never has my regret been more profound for being in such a state, without voice, without eloquence. To speak about Nelly suitably would require speaking like she herself spoke … lacking words my very sincere tears must have indicated my emotion and my sadness—my remorse as well…. You are right that there were between Nelly Roussel and myself many affinities. We only saw one another rarely and, nonetheless, I always felt her present.”

79. “Nécrologie: Nelly Roussel,” L’Ère nouvelle, Dec. 21, 1922; “Nécrologie: Nelly Roussel,” Petite Provençal, Dec. 23, 1922. Dictionnaire des intellectuels français, 1008–9.

80. Henriette Sauret, “Un Apôtre du feminism: Nelly Roussel,” Française, Mar. 14, 1931; “In Memorium: Nelly-Roussel La Généreuse,” Voix de femmes, Jan. 15, 1933. Commemorating her mother in 1927, for example, Mireille referred to the “memory of her life of ardent and generous battle, where her delicate nature was too quickly consumed” (“Une Voix de l’au delà,” Mère éducatrice, October 1927). Crediting his own internationalism to a 1919 lecture by Roussel, Louis Martin, senator from the Var, similarly said that she had been “consumed by the internal flame that set her on fire” (“Politique extérieur,” Petit Var, Sept. 10, 1932; Martin repeated the metaphor in “La Protection des forêts,” ibid., Aug. 12, 1934).

81. Sontag, Illness as Metaphor; Herzlich and Pierret, Illness and Self in Society, 28; Barnes, Making of a Social Disease, 51; Porter, “Case of Consumption.”

82. Noëlie Drous, “Nos pierrres noires,” Voix des femmes, Dec. 13, 1923.

83. FR, carton 8, Louise Nel to MG, Dec. 22, 1922; Mireille to Marbel, Jan. 9, 1923.

Epilogue

1. FR, carton 8, Odette Laguerre to MG, Aug. 20, 1923, Dec. 31, 1923, Aug. 30, 1926, Sept. 9, 1926; Mireille Nelly-Roussel, “L’Enfance heureuse,” Fronde, Aug. 25, 1926; “Combien furent-elles?” ibid., June 4, 1927; “Au voix de l’au delà,” Mère éducatrice, October 1927.

2. Michel Robin, interview, June 7, 1997.

3. Popkin, History of Modern France, 202.

4. FR, carton 8, Mireille to HG, September–October 1927; interview with Michel Robin, June 7, 1997.

5. FR, carton 6, HG to “Mon cher maître,” Mar. 15, 1928, and carton 5, Godet manuscript, May 1, 1928.

6. Madeleine Vernet, “À la mémoire d’Henri Godet,” Mère éducatrice, November–December 1937; interview, Michel Robin, June 7, 1997, and subsequent conversations 1997–2004.

7. FR, carton 5, HG to Monsieur Faure, Feb. 4, 1937; Achille Urbain, director of the Vincennes Zoo, to Senator Fleurot, Dec. 12, 1937; Hargrove, Statues de Paris, 989; Roussel, Éternelle sacrifiée, ed. Armogathe and Albistur, 84n24. See also Musée d’Orsay, Documentation, Sculpture, Godet.

8. Musée d’Orsay, Documentation, Godet. Sotheby’s catalogue and Gazette, Nov. 1, 1991. See HG to NR, Sept. 27, 1921, in which Henri says he is rereading La Dame aux camélias and seeing the symbolic function of the flowers for the first time.

9. Madeleine Vernet, “À la mémoire d’Henri Godet,” Mère éducatrice, November–December 1937.

10. Mireille to NR, September 1923; recopied, February 1966. For Roussel’s letter, see Chapter 7 above.

11. Interview with Michel Robin, June 7, 1997.

12. HG to Noëlie Drous, Dec. 13, 1923.

13. Mère éducatrice, Apr. 24, 1924, November 1925, December 1926, October 1927, November 1930, November–December 1932; Voix des femmes, Apr. 24, Dec. 18, 1924, Jan. 15, 1925, November 1930, Jan. 15 and 31, 1933; Petit Var, Sept. 10, 1932, Aug. 21, 1934; Eveil de la femme, Nov. 3 and 10, 1932; Revue bibliographique, May–June 1930; Amitié française, July 13, 1930; Pages féminines: Maternité, August–September 1930; Française, Mar. 14, 1931; Droit des femmes, February 1931; Grande Réforme, July and August 1931, November 1932, July 1933; Révue du droit public et de la science politique, December 1931; Voix libertaire, Dec. 24, 1932; Solidarité (Nice), Dec. 5, 1932; Flambeau, Jan. 5, 1933; Idée libre, December 1932; Pensée libre, December 1932; Griffe, Jan. 25, 1934; Patrie humaine, Jan. 28, Feb. 4, 1933; Ère nouvelle, Mar. 3, 1933; Voix libertaire de Limoges, Apr. 8, 1933; Carnet de la semaine, Jan. 22, 1933; Contre-poison, July 1933. Française, Mar. 14, 1931. Manuel Devaldès, “Nelly Roussel,” Grande Réforme, July 1933. Victor Margueritte, “Au fil de l’heure,” Volonté, Jan. 8, 1933. “La femme conservatrice,” Griffe, Jan. 25, 1934.

14. Jeanne Humbert, “Les Précurseurs,” Grande Réforme, March 1946. See also Humbert’s article in Réfractaire, January 1976. Idée libre, August–September 1955.

15. See Koos, “Fascism, Fatherhood, and the Family”; id., “‘On les aura!’”; id., “Gender, Anti-Individualism, and Nationalism”; Muel-Dreyfus, Vichy et l’éternel feminin; Pollard, Reign of Virtue; Burton, Holy Tears, Holy Blood.

16. Cova, Maternité et droits des femmes, 116.

17. Ibid., 282.

18. The birthrate spiked just after the war and then gradually fell to near prewar levels by 1980; see graph in Ronsin, Grève des ventres, 241

19. Payer, Medicine and Culture, 50. According to this survey, 6 percent of British women and 3 percent of American women relied on withdrawal. Payer points out that by the time the ban was lifted, the Pill was already available, which at least partly explains why mechanical means, such as the diaphragm, never became popular in France. See more statistics provided by the Institut national d’études démographiques at www.ined.fr/population-en-chiffres/france/index.html (accessed December 14, 2005).

20. A debate about American and French feminism that began with the publication of Mona Ozouf’s Mots des femmes (1995) was published in Débat, November–December 1995; excerpts have been reproduced in Célestin et al., Beyond French Feminisms, 225–38.

21. Margaret Sanger lived in Paris for several months in 1915, where she sought information about birth control, but her inability to understand French limited her contacts to the working-class friends of one English-speaking neo-Malthusian. Sanger, Autobiography, 103; Reed, Birth Control Movement, 89–96.

22. Reed, Birth Control Movement, 89–96; McCann, Birth Control Politics, 1.

23. Soloway, Birth Control, 312.

24. Linda Gordon, Woman’s Body, Woman’s Right, 231–42; Offen, European Feminisms, 336–39; Soloway, Birth Control, 134–36, 152–53. See also Fisher and Szreter, “‘They Prefer Withdrawal’”; Cook, Long Sexual Revolution, 91–142.

25. Ronsin, Grève des ventres; Humbert, Eugène Humbert; Guerrand and Ronsin, Sexe apprivoisé; Sowerwine and Maignien, Madeleine Pelletier; Felicia Gordon, Integral Feminist.

26. Duchen, Women’s Rights and Women’s Lives, 120–27.

27. Ibid., 173.

28. Ibid., 120–81. The Communist Party believed birth control diverted the working class from its true socialist goals; like the socialists of Roussel’s day, it claimed that numerous children would not be a burden for women after the fall of capitalism, a stance that led many women to leave the Party. The communists subsequently changed their position because of high abortion rates.

29. Duchen, Women’s Rights and Women’s Lives, 207–9.

30. FR, carton 7, correspondence of Mireille Godet, 1956–85, MG to Nouvel Observateur, Feb. 17 and 21, 1972.