The Unruly Passions of Eugenie R.
Page 43
I pause, take a breath, consult my heart; and my heart demurs to answer. But it is a woman’s heart now—not a girl’s; not unknown. And with me for good.
Berthe is with him, he writes. She is well. Determined, he says, upon knowing her mother.
The second letter is from Odette and encloses a note from Maxime Lisbonne. Henri Duport, he writes, was not executed, but deported to New Caledonia, along with Louise Michel and certain others. Blanqui, the old prisoner, intervened on his behalf. And there is a movement afoot for amnesty, repatriation of the exiled Communards. It will take a long time, he writes. But hope is alive. And Henri is alive.
It is not a sound that awakens me; not a bell or a clap of thunder; perhaps it is the movement of a hand, an arm flung open, the arc of a gesture to throw open the shutters and let in some air. But perhaps not. Perhaps it is just time to lift my eyes. To be flooded with vision. In the end, no one could walk these streets and remain blind.
I am more a seeker of beginnings, than ends. Beginnings are sweeter, after all. An encounter on a bridge over the Seine; finding a friend over the fripier’s cart at the Temple; sharing a pichet in a seedy café or the bite of absinthe on the tongue at a long zinc bar. Although once you look closely, endings are deceptive. Once you do not turn the eyes away.
France, 1848–1871
Rise of the Second Empire, 1848–1869
February 1848—King Louis Philippe abdicates, dissolving the "July Monarchy" of 1830 in favor of a provisional government.
March 1848—The working day is limited to ten hours in Paris, eleven in the provinces.
June 1848—Louis Napoleon Bonaparte is elected to the Constituent Assembly (along with Victor Hugo) but remains in exile in England until August.
December 1851—Louis Napoleon Bonaparte stages a coup d'état. Despite demonstrations of resistance, the coup is ratifi ed by plebiscite.
December 1852—Empire is proclaimed, with Louis Napoleon Bonaparte at its head as Napoleon III.
January 1853—Napoleon III marries Eugénie de Montijo, age twenty-eight, of the Spanish nobility.
July 1853—Georges Haussmann becomes prefect of the Seine, charged with the rebuilding of Paris.
1856—Birth and baptism of the prince imperial; Flaubert publishes Madame Bovary; photographer Charles Marville begins documenting Paris streets.
1857—Flaubert is prosecuted for "off ense of public morals."
February 1858—First of Bernadette Soubirous's visions at a grotto near Lourdes.
January 1860—Paris city limits are extended.
April 1861—American Civil War commences.
January 1862—France invades Mexico.
September 1862—Construction begins for reservoir and aqueduct to ensure water supply in Paris.
November 1862—Victor Hugo publishes Les Misérables.
1863—Napoleon III suggests that France, Britain, and Russia intervene in the American Civil War; Russia and Britain decline.
January 1863—Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation.
May 1863—Salon des Refusés launches the Impressionist painters.
1864—International Working Men's Association founded in London.
April 1864—The Austrian archduke and prince Ferdinand Maximilian, of the house of Hapsburg, is crowned Maximilian I of Mexico, with support from Mexican aristocrats and France.
April 1865—Robert E. Lee surrenders to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox.
April 1865—Lincoln is assassinated.
July 1866—Prussian army conquers and annexes Austria, France's ally, at Sadowa, in a move toward German unifi cation and expansion.
1867—Karl Marx publishes Das Kapital.
April 1867—The Great Exhibition opens in Paris, including "model workers' dwellings" and the Krupp cannon.
June 1867—Maximilian I is abandoned by French protectors and shot at Querétaro by Mexican nationalists.
May 1868—First issue of the leftist, empire-critical newspaper La Lanterne is published, becoming a bestseller among workers; its publisher is subsequently arrested.
May 1869—French elections result in defeats of pro-empire candidates.
July 12, 1869—Napoleon III announces liberalizing reforms, including freedom of the press.
August 1869—The Carpeaux sculpture La Danse, in front of the Opéra Garnier, is defaced for being too realistic.
November 28, 1869—At the last imperial ball at the Tuileries palace, Empress Eugénie dresses as Marie Antoinette.
The Empire's Collapse, 1870–1871
January 1870—The republican journalist Victor Noir is murdered by Prince Pierre Bonaparte, great-nephew of Napoleon I and Napoleon III's cousin.
July 1870—Otto von Bismarck advances the Hohenzollern prince Leopold of Sigmaringen for the vacant throne of Spain.
July 13, 1870—King Wilhelm of Prussia receives the French ambassador at Bad Ems, but refuses terms that no Hohenzollern candidates be proposed for the Spanish throne.
July 19, 1870—The French Empire declares war on Prussia.
July 28, 1870—Napoleon III and his fi fteen-year-old son, the prince imperial, embark from Saint-Cloud for the front.
August 3, 1870—A successful French attack near Saarbrücken; newspapers hail the "nvasion of Germany." Over the following few days, battles are fought at Wissemberg, Froeschwiller, Spicheren, Forbach, and Woerth.
August 15, 1870—The Prussians surround Strasbourg, France, the start of a fi fty-day siege.
September 3, 1870—Napoleon III's armies are defeated at the Battle of Sedan on the Belgian border, and he is taken prisoner.
September 4, 1870—The French Empire is overthrown. A republic is proclaimed by the provisional Government of National Defense.
September 19, 1870—Siege of Paris by the Prussian army begins.
September 28, 1870—Strasbourg capitulates and rations begin in Paris.
October 3, 1870—The newspaper La Liberté suggests a women's army, the "Amazons of the Seine," be funded by the jewels of wealthy ladies. Trochu vetoes the project.
October 7, 1870—Léon Gambetta leaves Paris in a balloon, to raise an army. The fi rst major defeat of the Prussians follows at Coulmiers.
October 27, 1870—Metz capitulates, leaving behind supplies and arms for the Prussians' use.
October 31, 1870—A demonstration by 150,000 members of the National Guard of Belleville takes place at the Hôtel de Ville.
November 26, 1870—The Great Sortie results in 12,000 French dead in three days.
January 1871—Prussians bombard Paris for three weeks.
January 18, 1871—Wilhelm I pronounced Kaiser of the Germans and the Emperor of Unifi ed Germany at Versailles.
January 20, 1871—No rations are left in Paris.
January 22, 1871—Protest at the Hôtel de Ville is put down by Trochu's army, the Breton Mobiles.
January 28, 1871—Armistice and capitulation of Paris.
February 8, 1871—The National Assembly convenes in Bordeaux.
February 17, 1871—Adolphe Thiers wins a vote of confi dence and is appointed to lead the French Republic and to negotiate the terms of the Treaty of Frankfurt.
February 26, 1871—During preliminary peace talks, the Prussians demand fi ve billion gold francs in reparations within fi ve years, as well as territories in the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine. Working-class Parisians drag cannon, which they have purchased by subscription, to Montmartre.
March 1, 1871—Prussians march through Paris. The National Assembly moves to Versailles; the Central Committee of the National Guard (the Commune) forms in Paris.
March 18, 1871—Government soldiers refuse to retrieve cannon from Montmartre, turning their rifl es butt-up; the Commune begins a "bloodless revolution."
March 22, 1871—A massacre takes place on the rue de la Paix, sparked by protests from the Friends of Order.
March 26, 1871—The Commune and Municipal Council elected at the Hôtel de Ville.
&nb
sp; April 1871—Gustave Courbet calls for a federation of artists organized on democratic principles.
April 2, 1871—Versailles troops push into Paris's suburbs, defeating the Commune's National Guard.
April 3–5, 1871—Women march to Versailles to demand reconciliation.
April 5, 1871—The Commune takes priests hostage.
April 6, 1871—Thiers bombards western Paris, trapping residents.
April 11, 1871—Women's section of the International is formed.
April 29, 1871—Versailles troops victorious at Issy-les-Moulineaux after a strong Commune defense.
May 6, 1871—Elizabeth Dmitrieff publishes the manifesto of the Union des Femmes, the Women's Union.
May 10, 1871—The Treaty of Frankfurt ratifi es the peace terms and cedes Alsace-Lorraine to Prussia.
May 17, 1871—A cartridge factory on the avenue Rapp explodes, killing female workers.
May 18–21, 1871—Meetings of working women on the reorganization of labor take place.
May 21–28, 1871—Semaine Sanglante (Bloody Week).
May 21, 1871—Versailles troops enter Paris, retaking the Champs-élysées.
May 22, 1871—Executions at the Parc Monceau. The Communards set fi re to a number of buildings as they retreat.
May 24, 1871—Death of Raoul Rigault on the rue Guy-Lussac and execution of the Archbishop of Paris by the Commune.
May 27, 1871—Communards are executed at Père Lachaise Cemetery; large numbers are imprisoned or deported to New Caledonia in the South Pacific.
May 28, 1871—Last battles in Belleville.
June 2, 1871—The rebuilding of Paris begins.
Glossary
Abandonné—abandoned infant; orphan
Abéqueuse—wet nurse
Académie—erotic photograph
Affair de coeur—love affair
Ambulance—hospital, or makeshift emergency center during the siege of Paris
Ami-coeur—term for partner in an intimate relationship
Amour-propre—self-respect
Assistance publique—welfare
Auch—ancient city founded by the Romans; the departmental seat of the province of Gers
Aurore—dawn
Auscitain—having an ancestry from Auch
Badinguet—nickname for Napoleon III, who borrowed the clothes of a mason of this name in order to enter Paris incognito
Balthazar’s Feast—a lavish feast
Bar à vin—wine bar
Bibard—drunkard
Biberons—baby bottles
Billets-doux—love notes
Blanqui—Auguste Blanqui, revolutionary leader, writer, and philosopher of the Left; spent much of his life in prison
Blanquiste—partisan of the Left; supporter of the exiled leader
Bloc—short for bloc de foie gras
Bonne—housemaid
Bouilli—soup
Brigade des Moeurs—Morals Brigade; vice squad
Caleu—rustic oil lamp
Camélia—kept woman
Carte—mandatory identity card for registered prostitutes, marked with the dates of their health checks
Carte de brème—slang for the carte, named after the bream, a flat white fish
Carte de visite—photo post card
La Case de l’Oncle Tom—the novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, a bestseller in France
Charenton—lunatic asylum
Chassepot—army-issued rifle
Chasseur—division of the French army, on foot or horse-mounted
Chauffe-pieds—braziers used as foot warmers
Chouette—slang for cute, great, nice
Chou-fleur—cauliflower
Cocotte—high-class prostitute cultivating a wealthy clientele
Code Napoleon—Napoleonic Code, from which the French Civil Code was derived
Comme il faut—accepted behavior in good society
Cora Pearl—a notorious Second Empire courtesan, rumored to be a mistress of Napoleon III; born Emma Crouch in England
Cotte—worker’s blue canvas overall
Courte—slang for virile member, not necessarily large
Curé—priest, especially in rural areas
Dab—slang for doctors who inspected prostitutes; also, for the speculum
La Dame aux Camélias—the famous courtesan in the novel of the same name, by Alexandre Dumas fils
D’Artagnan—character in Dumas’s The Three Musketeers, based on an actual man who rose from an aristocratic Auch lineage
Demimonde—fashionable society
Enceinte—pregnant; also, term for the walled perimeter of Paris
En cheveux—hatless; literally, clad only in her hair; a state denoting poverty, wantonness, bad taste, or all three
Enfant trouvé—orphan; a term used to refer to the individual throughout life
Estaminet—café or bar
Faiblard—weakling; a small-membered man
Fédérés—National Guard battalions that formed the core of the Commune fighters
La fée verte—the green fairy, meaning absinthe
Ficelle—thin baguette
Filles en carte—registered prostitutes who work on the street rather than in a brothel
Flâneur—boulevardier
Fouille merde—sewer scavenger
Fournisseur de l’empereur—furnisher to the emperor
Foie de canard—preserved duck liver
Foie d’oie—preserved goose liver
Fripier—seller of used clothing
Frisson—sudden feeling of excitement or fear
Frotteur—man who harasses women in public places
Gants d’amour—literally, gloves of love; a term for any kind of gift to a kept woman or prostitute
Garni—cheap furnished room
Gaveuse—goose-girl, named for the implement used to force-feed fowl, the gavé
Gers—province in southwest France
Grande horizontale—upscale prostitute, courtesan
La Grande Puttana—the great whore (Italian)
Grippe—flu
Grisette—young woman of bohemian tastes, often the lover of an artist or poet, and generally of the working class
Hospice des Enfants Trouvés—hospital for abandoned infants; commonly known as Enfants Trouvés and the same as the Hospice des Enfants Assistés
Hôpital de Lourcine—hospital where women who were not prostitutes were treated for syphilis
Hôpital Hommes Vénériens—men’s venereal hospital
Hôtel de passe—cheap hotel for venal liaisons
“Il ne faut rien brusquer”—“One must never act rashly,” a maxim of Napoleon III
Impasse de la Bouteille—street name, meaning “dead end of the bottle”
Inscrit—registered prostitute under the control of the police
Insoumise—a woman presumed to be working unregistered; a rather broad term also alluding to defiance, insubordination
Laissez-passer—document allowing travel into and out of Paris
La Lanterne—left-wing newspaper
Levée en masse—general uprising and rally to defeat the enemy
La lune—the moon
Mairie—city or town hall
Maison de rendezvous—hotel for assignations, but for the better-heeled, higher-paying customers
Maison de tolérance—tolerated house, meaning a high-class brothel
Malade—ill
Les Malheurs de Sophie—popular children’s book by the Comtesse de Ségur, published in 1859
Marchande d’habits—wardrobe merchant who offered clothing on loan and for rent
“La Marseillaise”—French national anthem
Matefaim—kind of doughnut or fried dough
La Maternité—maternity hospital for poor or working-class women
Miché—john who patronizes prostitutes
Mitrailleuse—a rapid-firing wheel-mounted cannon used by the French in the Franco-Prussian War
Mogador—Céleste Mogador, a writer, performer, and at one time an inscribed prostitute; later Comtesse de Chabrillon
“Monsieur fils”—literally, “Mr. Son,” meaning Louis Napoleon’s son and heir
Mont de Piété—a pawnshop system run by the city of Paris
La morte—death
Muffe—rich old man who patronizes prostitutes
Non-inscrit—a clandestine, meaning unregistered, prostitute; see insoumise
Nourrice—wet nurse
Nouveau Plan de la Ville de Paris 1860—street maps of Paris, by arrondissemont, bound as a small book
Paff—shot of brandy
Paris Illustré—popular illustrated periodical
Passe—brothel term for the period of a prostitute’s engagement with a client
Patronne—woman manager of a shop, or similar
Père inconnu—father unknown, the term typically used on the birth certificate filed by an unwed mother
La petite—gesture of defiance
Petite salope—little slut
Petroleuse—female incendiary, mythical or real, during the siege of Paris
Pichet—measure of wine, in a carafe
Pissoir—public urinal
Poissonnière—fishmonger
Poulet rôti—roast chicken
Préservatif—condom
Prince Leopold—Leopold of Sigmaringen, from a branch of the dynastic Hohenzollern family; advanced as a candidate for the Spanish throne by Bismarck in 1870
Rebouiseur—fabric worker who restores old cloth
Recherche de la paternité—an unwed woman’s claim that a particular man is the father of her child
Red Virgin—nickname for the leading Communard Louise Michel
Revanche—rematch, as in a duel
Rue d’Enfer—street name, meaning “street of hell”
Rue des Vertus—street name, meaning “street of virtues”
Quartier—quarter; area of the city
Quibus—slang for derrière