Chapter 23 : My Mother's Death

Chapter 23. My Mother's Death

For a while during my deportation my mother lived with a relative she had always been very fond of, at a little woolens shop opposite the Louver stores in Paris. After a time she went to live with other relatives in Lagny, and she was living there when I returned from New Caledonia. Four months after my return she moved back to Paris where we lived at 24 [sic: 36], rue Polonceau, and at that place we had fleeting moments of joy. With my mother and Marie near me, I was almost afraid, because happiness is such a fragile branch, and we break it when we rest on it. Two old women, friends of my mother, came to see her every day, and they gave her those little attentions old people love so much; my dear Marie stayed with her while I was away at meetings.

My mother’s last home was at 45, boulevard Ornano on the fifth floor. There she underwent the long torture of two years without me before her death. In the middle room her bed was placed parallel to the hall, and above the chest of drawers hung a large portrait of me that Mme Jacqueline had painted. How many times my poor mother must have had her eyes on it during those two years! In her last moments when it was difficult for her to speak, it seemed to me that she wanted me to give that painting to Rochefort, and he has kept it for me ever since.

On sunny days, so long as we could make her believe that I would be in prison for only one year, she stayed at her window for hours at a time. It was there where she had waited for me so often, Mme Bias waiting with her, when I was expected home from my last lecture tours. Each time a group of prisoners was released my mother would rally because of the hope I would be among them. Finally it was necessary to admit that instead of my being sentenced to only one year, I had been sentenced to six years, and instead of being near her at Saint-Lazare, I was at Clermont. Personal hatreds unleashed by unscrupulous persons had contributed to my being sentenced to six years in prison, and from Bastille Day of 1884 on, when my mother had to be told the truth, she no longer went to the window. From the moment she learned that news, she got up from her easy chair only to lie down on her bed, and from her bed she went only to her coffin.

I could have fled abroad and taken her with me instead of submitting to trial, but I allowed myself to be put on trial because that is our custom. I could also have baffled the people who questioned me. They were trying to find out if I was responsible, and I could have made fun of their heavy-handed tricks, but we revolutionaries do not avoid responsibility. I answered the worthy investigators as if I suspected nothing, though I knew very well where their vengeance came from.

In prison I was well treated. Anybody who believes that simply being well nourished is enough to make a person happy would have believed me far happier than I was. Even if I had been poorly treated, I would have felt nothing but my mother’s affliction.

From prison I wrote several letters to the authorities, some at the moment when cholera was rife in Paris, and then I had a twofold right: to be near my mother and to be in the city that I had never deserted in its days of trial. I wrote other letters when my mother was in her last days, and I asked to be taken to her. These letters should be in a Book of Memorial, for they contain two death agonies—my mother’s and my own.

Here is one letter:

Prison of Clermont (Oise) Number 1327 Sunday, 15 November 1884 (Personal)

Monsieur le president de la Republique

Here is the truth. If no man’s heart understands it, may it stand alone as my witness.

For eighteen months I haven’t read one line from a newspaper. But across the prison wall which separates us from the world a scrap of a sentence has reached me. Cholera is in Paris. It has been going on for a long time, and all the denials in the world won’t convince me otherwise.

Not one person has called to mind that in those circumstances my place is in Paris, even if it be in an underground cell. It is to you, therefore, that I say: If I am treated like a criminal of the State, remember that I came forward openly to place myself in the hands of my judges. May they act similarly towards me.

Louise Michel

A week later I wrote:

Prison of Clermont (Oise) Number 1327 21 November 1884

Monsieur le ministre de l’lnterieur

I have only my mother left in this world. My crudest enemies would ask for my immediate transfer to a prison in Paris if I could speak out, because under the present circumstances either her illness or cholera could take my mother from me.

I am not asking for visits or letters in the prison you might put me in. If you want, I won’t be eligible for release. But I shall be in Paris breathing the same air that my mother breathes, and my mother will know that I am there. She can experience that happiness while she is alive and not after she is dead.

Sincerely,

Louise Michel

Here are some fragments of letters I wrote asking to be brought near my mother:

I shall be absolutely straightforward. In exchange for a release or transfer to another prison, just so it be in Paris near my mother, I will go to New Caledonia when she is no longer with us. I have already been useful there, and I can be so again by founding schools in the midst of the tribes.

The beginning of that letter is missing, but undoubtedly it also was sent to the Minister of the Interior. Still another fragment contains these words:

I have not had an answer to my letters and shall probably never have one. But considering the times we live in, who knows whether one of your grandsons caught in the same situation won’t be sorry you didn’t answer me.

It is not a political question. It is a question concerning mothers, and unfortunately, I shall not be the last prisoner.

Louise Michel

I do not believe that this sorrow inflicted on my poor old mother increased anyone’s happiness very much, but no one can do anything about it any longer. You cannot awaken the dead.

For a long time I had no response to the letters I had written to all those officials. Finally, I was transferred to Saint-Lazare. If the authorities had only brought me near my mother sooner! Her powerful constitution immediately rallied at each of my visits, and she would not be dead.

Even at this point my anonymous enemies threatened to trouble her last days by claiming that her paralyzes was some contagious disease. Although the public is always credulous in times of cholera, my enemies failed. Those vipers are consoling themselves now by writing false letters over my name. I envy the happiness of people who bother with this sort of thing. I no longer feel them. All the venom in the world could fall on my head without my noticing it, and those letters are only a few drops of water where a whole ocean has passed.

The authorities acted very well at the last, and allowed me to go to my dying mother’s bedside. As always, the rulers were less evil than their laws, and they allowed me several days near her. Policemen, instead of tormenting me, helped me move my mother smoothly from one bed to another each time she wanted. Those policemen were not like the ones who take care of politicians, and they weren’t among the ones who savagely beat down the people on May 24 this year at the P£re Lachaise cemetery. My mother thanked the policemen who helped me to move her, and I remember it, too.

At 4:57 in the morning of 3 January 1885 my mother died. When I came down the stairs at 45, boulevard Ornano on the morning of her burial, I left her lying in her coffin, which had not yet been nailed shut, and I thought of all her sorrow during the past two years. In my heart I felt everything she had suffered. Poor mother! How happy she would have been to spend a few days with me.

I must say that the authorities acted well here, for I had been able to stay with her until the end. Then, before I left her house forever, I was able to lay her out on her bed as she used to like to lie down. She no longer suffered. Let justice be done to everyone in the world, even the least important person.

Because my mother was no longer suffering, I didn’t ask the authorities for permission to attend the funeral; with her death I had nothing more to ask for. Her funeral on 5 January 1885 became the occasion for a massive outpouring of public sentiment. Here is how it was reported:

At the Home of the Deceased

The working-class districts of the city emptied their dark alleys as they had done during the great days of the popular awakening. From every direction came the great mass of the people, the true people, from their dank dens and from their workshops.

In front of 45, boulevard Ornano in the XVIII e Arrondissement the crowd was such that no traffic could move.

The coffin was placed on the hearse at 11:00 a.m. precisely—too pre¬ cisely, because thousands of people arrived in the half hour that followed the departure of the hearse.

Louise Michel, before her return to Saint-Lazare prison, had placed a few mementos near the body of her mother: a red-framed photograph of herself leaning on a rock; a lock of her hair tied with a black ribbon; a bouquet of red immortelles which she had brought back from the burial of her friend, Marie Ferre; a portrait of Marie; and finally, some of the flowers which had been brought to her sick mother during her last days.

Citizen Clemenceau had come to offer his condolences to the family and to apologize for not being able to be in the funeral procession.

Numerous wreaths had been placed on the coffin and at the rear of the hearse. Many bouquets of real flowers were mingled with the wreaths.

There was one wreath inscribed: “To the mother of Louise Michel from L’Intransigeant staff’; one from the Libre-Pensee; one from the Bataille; and many others. Louise Michel placed a wreath made of black beads; it bore only the words, “To my mother.”

The funeral procession began. Immediately after the hearse came an old man with white hair. He was M. Michel, the nearest relative of the deceased, and he was accompanied by his two daughters, the cousins of the imprisoned Louise.

Behind them Citizen Henri Rochefort walked with his eldest son, Vaughn, and the entire staff of L’Intransigeant.

Then came Citizen Louise Michel’s comrades in the struggle, those who followed her in becoming enemies of the state and who were continuing the revolutionary fight in the press or in the courts. Notable among them were: Alphonse Humbert; Joffrin; Eudes; Vaillant; Granger; Lissagaray; Champy; Henri Maret; Lucipia; Odysse Barot; S. Pichon, who is a munici¬ pal counselor of Paris; Antonio de la Calle, a former member of the revolutionary government of Cartagena; Moi'se, a councilman in his arron- dissement; Frederic Cournet; Victor Simond and Titard of the Radical; and still more—many former deportees from the Ducos Peninsula and convicts from Nou Island.

We must note also the presence of Citizen Deneuvillers, a former exile of 1871 and now L’Intransigeant correspondent at Brussels; Citizen Th£- leni, the representative of the Radical des Alpes; Bariol, the delegate from the Club of the Rights of Man in Vaucluse; P. Arnal, the delegate from the Fraternal Association of Republicans of the Basses-Alpes, Vaucluse, and Var; and many delegates representing groups in the provinces and Paris, but we regret we are not able to give all their names.

Mingled with this funeral procession of persons who had fought in 1871 and persons who had been tested at other times were fervent young people from recently founded revolutionary groups. Among them were a hun¬ dred anarchists. As soon as the funeral procession began to move, these young people unfurled three red flags, one of which bore the inscription: “The Revolutionary Sentinel of the XVIIP Arrondissement.”

Behind, filling the entire width of the street, came an immense crowd bringing the tribute of its respect and gratitude to Louise Michel in these sorrowful circumstances.

On the Way

Not since the burial of Blanqui has such an imposing spectacle of a popular demonstration occurred—nothing so grand and majestic as yes¬ terday.

The funeral procession headed towards the cemetery of Levallois-Perret by way of the boulevards of Ornano, Ney, Bessieres, Berthier, and the Porte de Courcelles. The slope of the ramparts on the right of the procession was occupied by numerous spectators who rose in tiers up the incline. On the other side, the walls, roofs, and windows were also filled with the curious.

From every street opening on the main road, a new crowd of workers and the poor either lined up respectfully for the passing of the cortege or joined it, making the procession even larger.

The police remained hidden, and thus calm continued to reign and no clashes occurred. Order was kept by only two constables under the direction of a corporal, but the authorities had taken extraordinary measures to throw a hidden army against the demonstrators if the need arose. The Garde republicaine was to the left of the marchers on the rue Ordone, and policemen had been put inside all the police stations along the route. In the courtyard of the La Pepiniere Barracks in the Place Saint-Augustine near the Etoile a battalion of infantry was drawn up with their packs ready to march.

When the funeral procession reached the Porte Ornano, it was esti¬ mated at over twelve thousand persons. From time to time the cry of “Long live the Commune!” or “Long live the Social Revolution!” came from the midst of that immense crowd.

As the cortege crossed the bridge over the Western Line Railroad, two dispatch riders appeared. Because the going and coming of official messengers is never a good omen, shouts of “Long live the Revolution!” multiplied. The two riders hurried to withdraw as soon as their task was done.

At the boulevard Berthier, in front of Bastion 49, a couple of dozen policemen were drawn up. They were under the command of Florentin, the municipal police chief of the XVIII e Arrondissement, who had just been given a medal for having protected the police spy and agitator, Pottery. This Florentin was doubtless looking forward to working wonders here and winning new stripes and new medals.

The moment the hearse passed in front of the police station, Florentin, followed by his men, blocked the boulevard and ordered the red flag to be taken down.

Resounding cries of “Long live the Revolution!” and “Long live the Commune!” answered him. The demonstrators, keeping a close watch on their flags, seemed ready to defy this savior of informers. At this tense moment Citizen Rochefort moved towards the police officer and said to him: “Your attitude is the real provocation. Up to now, everything has happened in the most perfect order, and your intervention is completely improper.”

Visibly intimidated, Florentin answered, “M. Caubet sent me the express order to stop the parading of the red flag.”

“Those red flags you are speaking of,” Rochefort said, “are the banners of societies which have the perfect right to choose whatever color suits them. There were also red banners following Gambetta’s coffin, and no one dared to oppose their being unfurled.”

These words and the forceful attitude of the citizens present made Florentin pause. He relented and went with his two dozen men to the head of the funeral procession in front of the hearse.

But when the police are not ferocious, they are treacherous. They planned their actions, and at the Porte d’Asnieres, as soon as the hearse crossed the iron bars in front of the tollbooth, they tried to close the gates quickly. The police intended to cut the hearse off from the funeral procession and thus prevent the exhibition of red flags, which they had their hearts set on doing.

They failed to count on the determination of the revolutionaries. The gates gave way before the pressure of the crowd. A few carriages returning to Paris while this was happening owed their not being inspected at the tollbooth to these events.

One last incident occurred while the funeral procession was going along beside the tracks of the Inner Circle Railroad. A train passed by with all the passengers at the side doors. Recognizing the funeral procession of Louise Michel’s mother, a great number of them began to wave their hats and hankerchiefs.

So the funeral procession arrived at Levallois-Perret, just outside the city walls.

At the Cemetery

The little city of Levallois-Perret was in a state of great excitement; so many people had not been seen for a long time. Many carriages were parked at the approaches to the cemetery, and all the residents of Levallois-Perret were standing, forming a hedge along the road where the funeral cortege was to pass.

The little cemetery had been tidied up. The gates were wide open, and the more eager citizens had already taken their places around the spot chosen for the burial.

It was Ferry’s tomb, Th£ophile Ferr£, whom the Versailles forces had murdered at Satory. He is buried there with his sister Marie Ferr6, who was the close friend and devoted companion of Louise Michel. The memorial statue is modest. The plot is surrounded by an iron fence, and the graves are covered by a large flat stone. A marker bears the name of the martyr and his sister.

The bell at the cemetery rang to announce the arrival of the funeral procession. In a second, the crowd had invaded the field of the dead. It was only with great difficulty that the pallbearers brought the body to the tomb, and the only way the wreaths could be gotten from the hearse to the coffin was to pass them from hand to hand.

The red flags were unfurled, and the tombs disappeared under a living tide that rose over them from the ground up to the top of the memorial statues. The spectacle was one of grandeur and majesty.

The Speeches

After a moment of silence and contemplation, the first speaker was our contributor, Ernest Roche. Here is a summary of his speech, which was interrupted frequently with cheers and applause from the crowd.

“Who are we, standing here around the coffin of this simple and good woman who never dreamed of being famous?

“Why is there such a mixture here of so many different sorts of republicans and socialists?

“What feeling moves all of us?

“What attraction draws us here?

“What unity of spirit inspires in each of us the same respect and gives each of us the same feeling of indignation in front of this dead woman?

“Let me tell you.

“There is one flag sacred to all of us, the flag that people fly only at certain solemn times, the flag that inflames us more than any gorgeous fabric. It is the flag of our martyrs, the flag of our heroes.

“The corpse of Lucrecia overturned the Tarquins and founded the Roman Republic. The bodies of unknown men who were struck down on 23 February 1848 by Louis Philippe’s soldiers brought on the collapse of his throne. The corpse of Victor Noir in the spring of 1870 caused the weakening of Louis Napoleon’s Empire and precipitated its fall.

“The body of Louise Michel’s poor mother is our common bond, for in each of our spirits it causes the same feeling of horror against the criminals who have murdered her.

“Don’t take shelter behind the age of your victim, you hypocrites. Her age doesn’t mitigate the odiousness of your terrible crime.

“Certainly, we know very well it wasn’t she you meant to reach, any more than the Empire had any particular hatred for Victor Noir. What differ¬ ence does it make to us whether your ferocity strikes down a simple person, or an unknown one, or a famous one from our ranks? The martyrdom with which you crown the person is enough to ignite our anger and is enough to explain it.

“Those two poor women, Louise Michel and her mother! Those who have known them know how indispensible they were to each other. The mother survived on the atmosphere of filial love with which her daughter surrounded her. By taking away her daughter, you killed her, and her death, perhaps, will drag along a second victim.

“After her, it will be Peter Kropotkin’s turn; he is dying in prison. Then will come others, more obscure, but no less unfortunate.

“And you don’t want us to get hold of these corpses, nor for us to rally around them with the idea of legitimate defense against those thieves who are stealing billions of francs and ruining our country until they can auction it off.

“We have come here to sign a compact for danger, vengeance, and justice. We have come to sign it in front of the tomb of Ferre, who was assassinated by the bullets of Versailles, and in front of the coffin of this woman poisoned by sorrow.

“I have one last thing to say: On behalf of our friends and colleagues at L’Intransigeant in whose name I am speaking, on behalf of those who fought beside our valiant citizen, Louise, on behalf of those who shared her agonies at being exiled and her joys upon returning—on behalf of all these, I must say how much we are moved by the sorrow that afflicts our friend Louise Michel and how much we would like to lighten its weight, if friendship and esteem can be any compensation for such a loss.”

Citizen Chabert expressed his feelings in these words:

“Here there is unanimity among the socialists as there will be on the day of battle, when everyone marches to the battlefield arm in arm.

“All of us agree on the goal we seek; we differ only on our choice of means. Already we can see the day dawning when we shall claim our rights, because the bourgeois opportunists are no longer satisfied with killing only men; now they kill women.

“Let us unite and declare first of all that if we become the masters we will no longer want any form of government at all. It is necessary for the people themselves finally to be the masters. Our elected officials who try to deceive us and set themselves up as governments, we will punish with death.

“The battle drawing us in foreshadows our victory because the situation is such that everyone will be involved. The opportunists are letting themselves slip into inactivity; they are counting on parliamentarism, but we are battering at parliamentarism, and we are on the verge of breaking down its door.”

Citizen Digeon spoke next:

“In the name of the anarchist groups, we have come to glorify the heroine of the demonstration at les Invalides two years ago.

“In front of this tomb, let us bring about the alliance of all revolutionaries. I am willing to bring all revolutionaries into one alliance on the foundation of absolute liberty and without any hidden motives.

“I do not wish to end without expressing all the hate I have built up for the pleasure-seekers who are oppressing us. We are the disinherited of the social order, which is why we are rushing to see justice come.”

Then Citizen Champy came to give homage to Louise Michel, and he associated himself with her sorrow.

“The revolution for which she was the apostle must give the people equality, well-being, and the inviolable rights they have earned through their work.”

Citizens Tortelier and Oddin spoke, and then the crowd broke up and streamed out of the cemetery with the utmost calm. It is easy to explain why they were orderly: no policemen were present.

That is how the newspapers reported the burial of my poor mother. Thank you, friends, all of you who were there. I shall always picture you that way around my poor dead mother, united and with no distinctions between factions, united in a common sorrow and with a common hope. Your hope is that after our generation, no one will suffer the way a mother suffered when she was separated from her daughter for two years of agony.

I want to say a few words about my mother’s life. People who knew her know how simple and good she was and know that she was intelligent and even had a certain gaiety in her conversation.

My grandmother used to speak to me about all the troubles my mother endured so courageously. I saw for myself her inexhaustible devotion and the horrible sorrows that she bore from 1870 to 1885. I knew very well that I loved her, but I did not realize the immense scope of this affection. Death made me feel it when it ended her existence.

Because her mother, Marguerite Michel, was a widow with six chil¬ dren, my mother was reared in the chateau at Vroncourt. She often told me about her fearful life as a little girl after she was transported from her nest. But how she loved those two persons who reared her with their own son and daughter! Perhaps some time in the future I will be able to relate her laborious and unassuming life.

She helped to keep those kind persons who reared her from knowing that easy circumstances no longer existed in the house, and she softened the sadness of death which struck freely around them.

I am what people call a bastard. But the two people who gave me the poor gift of life were free. They loved each other, and none of the wretched tales told of my birth is true, nor can they reach my mother now. Never have I seen a more decent woman.

And never have I seen more modesty and refinement, nor have I ever seen more courage. She never complained, although her life was one of sorrow.

Two days before her death she told me, “I have been very unhappy not to see you any more and to cost my friends so much.” That was the only time that she spoke to me in such a sad way. Her voice had a small wail in it and was no more than a breath.

Our friends realized how witty my mother was and how well she chatted in her simple way. Only I know, in spite of the pains she took to hide it, how good she was. She liked to appear brusque, and she laughed about it like a child.

In the last letter to me that my mother dictated, 27 November 1884, she told me:

My dear daughter,

Don’t be troubled; I’m not getting any worse. What hurts me is that you are always worrying.

I’m sending you some silk thread for your needlework. Make your crewel-work. Make me the views of the sea I talked to you about.

Your most recent needlework was not as good as the others. I see that you are sad and you’re wrong to be.

Don’t make any sweaters for me. I have enough. I need nothing any more. Too much has already been spent on me.

Above all else, don’t torment yourself. I embrace you with all my heart.

She was lying when she said she wasn’t any worse. She was already in bed, and she would never get up again. As for the crewel-work, the one of the sea she spoke about is not done yet. The “most recent” one which was “not as good as the others” was that way because I sensed that she was dying. It portrayed a great oak struck to its heart with an ax, and the ax was left in the wound from whence the sap flowed. It is a sad souvenir. I have kept the needles my mother sent me. I use them no longer, but one day I shall obey her and on my mother’s behalf make those views of the sea.