WEBVTT - Les Pétroleuses: 'Savage Hordes of She-Devils' 0:00:02.200 --> 0:00:06.559 Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership 0:00:06.600 --> 0:00:11.800 with iHeartRadio. 0:00:14.360 --> 0:00:16.680 Thank you for joining us for the first episode of 0:00:16.720 --> 0:00:20.120 a new season of Criminalia. This season, we'll be talking 0:00:20.160 --> 0:00:24.360 about arson, firebugs, and in this episode a creature known 0:00:24.400 --> 0:00:29.440 as the petreluse. The petreluse is at its very basics, 0:00:29.640 --> 0:00:33.000 considered to be a woman who uses petroleum fuel to 0:00:33.080 --> 0:00:36.800 set fires, according to the rumors around Paris in May 0:00:36.800 --> 0:00:40.600 of eighteen seventy one, though multiple petrulus were to blame 0:00:40.640 --> 0:00:43.839 for burning down much of the city. Of course, the 0:00:43.840 --> 0:00:45.800 story is a lot bigger than that, so let's get 0:00:45.800 --> 0:00:49.040 into it. Welcome to Criminalia. I'm Maria Tremarki. 0:00:49.120 --> 0:00:52.200 And I'm Holly Frye. And to talk about the Petreluse. 0:00:52.400 --> 0:00:55.440 And even though that sounds the same to English speakers 0:00:55.480 --> 0:00:59.000 as the singular, we are talking plural here. We need 0:00:59.000 --> 0:01:01.360 to first talk a bit about what was happening in 0:01:01.440 --> 0:01:06.959 France when they allegedly materialized, specifically the political turmoil in 0:01:07.040 --> 0:01:10.959 France in the nineteenth century, how France became a democracy 0:01:11.120 --> 0:01:13.600 after its defeat in the Franco Prussian War of eighteen 0:01:13.720 --> 0:01:17.400 seventy and the impact of the short lived radical Paris 0:01:17.440 --> 0:01:22.080 Commune that resulted. We fully acknowledge that, yes, one could 0:01:22.160 --> 0:01:25.440 easily spend a lifetime talking about the details of the 0:01:25.440 --> 0:01:28.440 commune what led up to it. You know, once you 0:01:28.480 --> 0:01:32.800 get from French Revolution into like late nineteenth century is 0:01:32.920 --> 0:01:35.280 kind of one long arc. That is a lot of 0:01:35.280 --> 0:01:39.000 things impacting one another and how things ultimately came to 0:01:39.040 --> 0:01:42.400 a fiery end. But because our focus is on the 0:01:42.400 --> 0:01:46.000 female supporters of the Paris Commune and the mythology that 0:01:46.040 --> 0:01:50.440 grew out of accusations of them being quote rebellious, we're 0:01:50.440 --> 0:01:53.440 going to talk pretty quickly through the historical timeline to 0:01:53.560 --> 0:01:55.720 get to the rise of the commune itself. 0:01:56.480 --> 0:01:59.480 Big changes happened in Central Europe after the Holy Roman 0:01:59.520 --> 0:02:03.200 Empire dissolved in eighteen oh six, and that included the 0:02:03.320 --> 0:02:08.640 unification of states. Before eighteen oh six, the German speaking States, 0:02:08.760 --> 0:02:12.720 or simply called the German States, had only been neighbors, 0:02:12.840 --> 0:02:18.120 really together, only in a very loose political entity. That 0:02:18.160 --> 0:02:22.679 political entity was the Holy Roman Empire. In the absence 0:02:22.880 --> 0:02:25.560 of that, Prince Otto von Bismarck thought he'd tried to 0:02:25.639 --> 0:02:28.959 unify all German states under the control of his northern 0:02:29.040 --> 0:02:33.160 German state of Prussia. Consolidation led to the creation of 0:02:33.200 --> 0:02:40.280 the German Confederation that was thirty nine unified states, including Prussia. Consolidation, 0:02:40.440 --> 0:02:44.800 though spawned three wars. The first war of German unification 0:02:44.960 --> 0:02:48.160 was the eighteen sixty two Danish War, the second was 0:02:48.200 --> 0:02:51.040 the eighteen sixty six Austro Prussian War, and the third 0:02:51.080 --> 0:02:54.679 and final piece of consolidation was the Franco Prussian War 0:02:54.720 --> 0:02:56.240 of eighteen seventy. 0:02:57.160 --> 0:03:00.960 And that brings us to Emperor Napoleon the Third. Napoleon 0:03:01.000 --> 0:03:05.040 Bonaparte's nephew, Napoleon the Third led what was known as 0:03:05.080 --> 0:03:09.240 France's Second Empire, and he did not much care for 0:03:09.320 --> 0:03:15.320 Otto's idea. He declared war against Prussia in retaliation. German troops, though, 0:03:15.400 --> 0:03:18.400 were ultimately better prepared than the French army, and the 0:03:18.400 --> 0:03:22.800 war ended with France's admission of defeat. France signed an 0:03:22.880 --> 0:03:26.480 armistice with the new Prussian led German Empire in January 0:03:26.520 --> 0:03:31.120 of eighteen seventy one, and remaining French government officials formed 0:03:31.160 --> 0:03:36.320 a new legislative National Assembly. Adolf Thier was appointed to 0:03:36.440 --> 0:03:40.520 lead the incoming government, a parliamentary republic rather than a monarchy, 0:03:40.960 --> 0:03:43.400 and he sat as President of what would become known 0:03:43.440 --> 0:03:47.720 as France's Third Republic. The new government set itself up 0:03:47.800 --> 0:03:51.120 at the former royal palace at Versailles, only about twelve 0:03:51.200 --> 0:03:55.840 miles west of Paris, and it remained there for several years. Today, 0:03:56.200 --> 0:03:58.600 the period of the Third Republic is considered to have 0:03:58.640 --> 0:04:03.440 been the first stable electoral democracy with universal male suffrage 0:04:03.520 --> 0:04:08.120 in Europe. This new government, though, was more conservative than 0:04:08.120 --> 0:04:11.400 the citizens of Paris were, and many were unhappy that 0:04:11.480 --> 0:04:15.560 the new rules seemed very similar to the old rule. It, 0:04:15.920 --> 0:04:19.000 like the Second Empire, was supported by the Catholic Church 0:04:19.360 --> 0:04:24.240 as well as military leaders and France's conservative population, but 0:04:24.320 --> 0:04:26.880 among Parisians there was a fear that it was just 0:04:26.960 --> 0:04:29.280 going to turn out to be a republican name only, 0:04:29.720 --> 0:04:32.400 and that the new political leaders planned to re establish 0:04:32.520 --> 0:04:33.159 the monarchy. 0:04:34.560 --> 0:04:37.840 Working class Parisians, who were both angry at the armistice 0:04:37.839 --> 0:04:42.600 with Germany and with Tierre's leadership, established a new revolutionary 0:04:42.600 --> 0:04:47.839 political authority, the Paris Commune. Its delegates, known as the 0:04:47.880 --> 0:04:50.680 commune Ards, were considered among Parisians to be a group 0:04:50.720 --> 0:04:55.920 of low class, ruthless radicals. They were actually mainly comprised 0:04:55.920 --> 0:04:59.240 of Jacobin's but also included Blancists as well as members 0:04:59.240 --> 0:05:06.120 of Karl Marxi International Workingmen's Association. The Paris Commune lasted 0:05:06.200 --> 0:05:11.200 for sixty four days. Though it existed for just two months, 0:05:11.240 --> 0:05:14.120 the Commune made a big impact and it's where we 0:05:14.240 --> 0:05:18.440 find the beginnings of the Petrulus. Concepts and ideas that 0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:22.520 in many countries are considered pretty commonplace in modern democracies. 0:05:22.600 --> 0:05:25.719 Things like women's rights, workers' rights, as well as separation 0:05:25.800 --> 0:05:29.000 of church and state. These were radical concepts that were 0:05:29.120 --> 0:05:32.920 not accepted in France in eighteen seventy one, but they 0:05:33.040 --> 0:05:36.880 were accepted ideas within the commune. 0:05:37.160 --> 0:05:41.120 The creation of the Paris Commune introduced more anger and 0:05:41.160 --> 0:05:44.200 aggression to the city. We're going to jump ahead a 0:05:44.200 --> 0:05:47.000 few months to April of eighteen seventy one, when the 0:05:47.120 --> 0:05:50.120 Versaie those are the troops who had remained loyal to 0:05:50.279 --> 0:05:55.400 Tiars's new government began amassing outside the city, fearing an 0:05:55.440 --> 0:05:58.920 impending attack, and rightly so, the leaders of the Paris 0:05:58.960 --> 0:06:03.960 Commune ready to mountain offensive. Louis Rossel, a soldier unhappy 0:06:04.040 --> 0:06:07.359 at the armistice with Germany, felt the new commune offered 0:06:07.400 --> 0:06:10.599 a quote lifeline, and he wrote to the Minister of 0:06:10.640 --> 0:06:13.960 war quote. I do not hesitate to join the side 0:06:14.000 --> 0:06:17.360 which has not concluded peace and which does not include 0:06:17.400 --> 0:06:23.839 in its ranks generals guilty of capitulation. Early offensive attempts failed, though, 0:06:23.880 --> 0:06:26.760 and Commune leaders called off their attacks on the Palace, 0:06:27.240 --> 0:06:28.000 but this. 0:06:28.000 --> 0:06:32.159 In turn then emboldened Tiers's troops, who attacked, entering the 0:06:32.160 --> 0:06:35.920 city through an unguarded city wall. At the time, Paris 0:06:35.960 --> 0:06:38.720 had roughly two million residents, and the war was being 0:06:38.800 --> 0:06:43.400 fought literally on their streets, in their front yards. By 0:06:43.440 --> 0:06:46.600 May twenty second, more than fifty thousand of tiers troops 0:06:46.600 --> 0:06:49.640 had moved into the city, and he hoped that suppressing 0:06:49.720 --> 0:06:53.640 the insurrection would ultimately strengthen the position of the Third Republic. 0:06:54.440 --> 0:06:57.680 In response, the Paris Commune issued a call to arms, 0:06:58.040 --> 0:07:01.200 and this is what brings us to the Paris and 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:04.920 what's known as lass Amene Saint Blanc or the Bloody Wheat. 0:07:06.920 --> 0:07:10.200 Paris, as you can imagine, had turned into chaos at 0:07:10.200 --> 0:07:13.400 this point. By May twenty third, the third day of 0:07:13.440 --> 0:07:17.120 the Bloody Week, Tirs's troops were targeting and killing supporters 0:07:17.120 --> 0:07:21.520 of the Commune in earnest communards, Catholic clergy. Let's just 0:07:21.560 --> 0:07:24.320 go ahead, and say anyone and everyone who lived in 0:07:24.400 --> 0:07:27.720 the city feared being shot or killed day and night 0:07:27.880 --> 0:07:32.920 and without cause. In one truly terrible statistic, more than 0:07:32.960 --> 0:07:36.800 three hundred suspected Communards were killed inside the church of 0:07:36.840 --> 0:07:42.240 Saint Marie Madeleine by Versailles troops. French poet Augustine Malvina 0:07:42.280 --> 0:07:46.360 Blanche Cotte described in her work Tablette dunfem pond'n la 0:07:46.440 --> 0:07:50.320 commune that's writings of a woman during the commune, the 0:07:50.360 --> 0:07:55.080 smell of gunpowder and the overwhelming terror around her. On 0:07:55.120 --> 0:07:58.360 May twenty four, she wrote, quote, the night has been dreadful, 0:07:58.640 --> 0:08:04.520 with reciprocal fury shells, shrapnel, cannonade, musketry all kept on 0:08:04.680 --> 0:08:08.800 bursting in a frightful concert. The sky itself is red. 0:08:09.040 --> 0:08:11.800 The flashes of the massacre have set it on fire. 0:08:13.320 --> 0:08:16.960 The city really wasn't prepared for conflict at this level. 0:08:17.520 --> 0:08:22.240 Many street barricades went unmanned. There wasn't enough ammunition. The 0:08:22.320 --> 0:08:25.040 city was defended not by the French army, those were 0:08:25.320 --> 0:08:28.960 Tier's forces, but rather by the local national guard called 0:08:28.960 --> 0:08:33.720 the Federat, which had roughly four hundred thousand volunteers among 0:08:33.720 --> 0:08:37.240 its forces. The national Guard had played a major role 0:08:37.320 --> 0:08:40.440 in previous wars, including the Franco Prussian War, but was 0:08:40.559 --> 0:08:44.480 disbanded by TIER soon after the establishment of the Third Republic. 0:08:45.280 --> 0:08:49.280 That job loss contributed to recent economic losses throughout the city, 0:08:49.440 --> 0:08:54.200 sparking additional anger among Parisians. When the Guard was reactivated 0:08:54.200 --> 0:08:57.560 to defend Paris during the eighteen seventy one uprising, it 0:08:57.679 --> 0:09:00.080 wasn't the unit Tier had known. It was a a 0:09:00.280 --> 0:09:05.720 newly radicalized national Guard that wasn't above say, burning down 0:09:05.720 --> 0:09:06.720 the Hotel Deville. 0:09:08.400 --> 0:09:12.200 Fires were intentionally set around the city during the uprising, 0:09:12.440 --> 0:09:16.080 and many during the Bloody Wheat. Targets included the Hotel 0:09:16.120 --> 0:09:19.080 de Ville as we just mentioned, the Palais de Justice, 0:09:19.480 --> 0:09:23.920 Tuilieri Palace, the Richelieut Library of the Louver, dozens of 0:09:23.960 --> 0:09:26.319 smaller buildings near the Rue Royale and the Rue de 0:09:26.480 --> 0:09:30.400 Faubourg Saint Honore, as well as the commercial docks along 0:09:30.440 --> 0:09:34.480 the Seine. Anything that had a whiff of the monarchy 0:09:34.480 --> 0:09:37.160 about it was considered a target, and among one of 0:09:37.200 --> 0:09:40.520 the first marks set ablaze was the Vendome Column. That's 0:09:40.559 --> 0:09:44.880 a monument that Napoleon Bonaparte had erected to honor well himself. 0:09:46.040 --> 0:09:49.520 The commune arts called it quote a monument of barbarism, 0:09:50.080 --> 0:09:53.040 and the idea to destroy the tower is sometimes credited 0:09:53.080 --> 0:09:57.559 to French artist Gustave Courbet, who had held leadership positions 0:09:57.600 --> 0:10:01.360 on the commune's arts and education councils, although he had 0:10:01.400 --> 0:10:04.880 broken with the commune before the Vendome column was attacked. 0:10:05.640 --> 0:10:09.280 Some private homes were looted and burned, including the residence 0:10:09.360 --> 0:10:12.840 of Adolph Thierre. In the days and months that followed 0:10:12.840 --> 0:10:15.920 the uprising, the fires and those who set them took 0:10:15.960 --> 0:10:17.280 on a story all their own. 0:10:18.360 --> 0:10:21.400 The Bloody Week ended on May twenty eighth, when Tierre's 0:10:21.400 --> 0:10:24.600 forces took control of the city, and a final act 0:10:24.640 --> 0:10:27.600 of brutality, roughly one hundred and fifty commune ards were 0:10:27.640 --> 0:10:31.199 executed and buried in a mass grave at Perlische's cemetery 0:10:31.280 --> 0:10:34.400 the night of May twenty seventh. More than forty three 0:10:34.480 --> 0:10:37.880 thousand Parisians were arrested in the aftermath of the uprising. 0:10:38.800 --> 0:10:42.280 Some leaders of the newly defunct commune fled France. Others 0:10:42.320 --> 0:10:45.120 were exiled to the French territory of New Caledonia in 0:10:45.120 --> 0:10:48.400 the South Pacific. Some were executed for their role in 0:10:48.440 --> 0:10:52.120 the uprising, though many members in the commune were eventually 0:10:52.280 --> 0:10:53.319 granted amnesty. 0:10:54.920 --> 0:10:56.600 We're going to take a break for a word from 0:10:56.600 --> 0:10:59.959 our sponsors, and when we return, we will talk about 0:11:00.080 --> 0:11:03.600 how the story of these Parisian arsonists just doesn't hold up. 0:11:17.720 --> 0:11:21.280 Welcome back to Criminalia. Let's talk about how the female 0:11:21.280 --> 0:11:25.040 Communards became a scapegoat for the violence that happened during 0:11:25.080 --> 0:11:29.280 the uprising and the misogynistic coverage of the trial that followed. 0:11:30.920 --> 0:11:34.160 So let's talk about the fires. We know from modern 0:11:34.280 --> 0:11:37.880 historians and some not so modern historians that the fires 0:11:37.920 --> 0:11:41.240 set around Paris during the uprising were likely set by 0:11:41.320 --> 0:11:44.720 Tiers troops as well as the National Guard and those 0:11:44.760 --> 0:11:48.040 who were striking out in political anger, but that is 0:11:48.120 --> 0:11:51.680 not how the story of these fires was told. The 0:11:51.760 --> 0:11:56.040 widespread arson, according to the original narrative, was attributed to 0:11:56.120 --> 0:11:59.840 the women Communards, who were given the nickname les Petrolus. 0:12:00.720 --> 0:12:04.720 American historian Albert Boehm once wrote that these women quote 0:12:04.800 --> 0:12:09.439 often symbolized the commune as a militant female, the mythical petruluse, 0:12:09.920 --> 0:12:13.280 the female incendiary who flouted her true nature. 0:12:15.760 --> 0:12:19.280 Women did have an active role in the Paris Commune, 0:12:19.280 --> 0:12:22.560 and that included everything from caring for the wounded to 0:12:22.760 --> 0:12:26.280 fighting in their revolution. There were a number of feminist 0:12:26.280 --> 0:12:30.520 initiatives proposed in the Commune, including equal wages for women, 0:12:30.760 --> 0:12:35.079 the right to divorce, and professional education for women, yet 0:12:35.880 --> 0:12:39.080 there were no women in leadership positions in the Commune. 0:12:39.600 --> 0:12:44.040 In her book The Fury Archives, Female Citizenship, Human Rights 0:12:44.040 --> 0:12:47.640 and the International Avant Garde, author Jill Richards writes that 0:12:47.800 --> 0:12:51.360 at the time, women who were active in politics would 0:12:51.360 --> 0:12:54.600 have been at the same time excluded from any kind 0:12:54.640 --> 0:12:58.520 of political recognition. That was the climate, and that was 0:12:58.600 --> 0:13:02.240 true within the Second Empire, the Third Republic, and the 0:13:02.280 --> 0:13:08.320 Commune's Central Committee. Richards calls these women political actors, human 0:13:08.760 --> 0:13:10.360 but not given the rights of men. 0:13:12.400 --> 0:13:15.319 At a time in France when women had no political 0:13:15.400 --> 0:13:18.560 rights and little to know liberties, the idea of the 0:13:18.559 --> 0:13:21.760 Petreloeus of the Paris Commune was one that represented the 0:13:22.000 --> 0:13:26.319 emancipated woman that was the usual term for a feminist 0:13:26.360 --> 0:13:31.400 in the nineteenth century. The petrelieuz was considered among Parisians 0:13:31.600 --> 0:13:35.840 to be dangerous. According to Gay Gullickson, professor Emerita at 0:13:35.840 --> 0:13:38.880 the University of Maryland and author of the book Unruly 0:13:38.920 --> 0:13:42.280 Women of Paris images of the Commune. Quote. They were 0:13:42.280 --> 0:13:45.560 women who had left the domestic sphere for the political arena, 0:13:45.840 --> 0:13:50.160 where feminism challenges bourgeois men's sense of order, power and 0:13:50.200 --> 0:13:55.280 well being. There was and is no evidence that there 0:13:55.320 --> 0:13:57.160 was an all girl arson gang. 0:13:58.840 --> 0:14:01.880 Female commune arts were on trial for their alleged arson 0:14:01.960 --> 0:14:07.000 activities during the uprising. French journalist Leonce DuPont recalled that 0:14:07.400 --> 0:14:10.720 the women were ugly, to be sure, but not quite 0:14:10.840 --> 0:14:14.679 ugly enough, or not as ugly as one might have expected. 0:14:15.600 --> 0:14:18.199 And though we paraphrased him a little bit there, all 0:14:18.240 --> 0:14:22.960 those ugly words were his, and it's his words, those 0:14:23.080 --> 0:14:25.800 ugly words that went on to become pretty much the 0:14:25.840 --> 0:14:29.360 default record of the fourth Military Tribunal of the Paris 0:14:29.400 --> 0:14:31.920 Commune that was the first of the trials to be 0:14:32.080 --> 0:14:35.200 devoted to female commune arts. 0:14:37.080 --> 0:14:43.560 Five women appeared in court, Elizabeth Gretife, Leontine Souetin, Josephine 0:14:43.600 --> 0:14:49.040 mauche Eula li Papavoine, and Lucie Marie Bouquamp. And of 0:14:49.080 --> 0:14:52.520 all of them, DuPont wrote, quote, they were not hideous enough, 0:14:52.640 --> 0:14:57.600 not old enough, not criminal enough to inspire horror. He 0:14:57.680 --> 0:15:00.560 had more to say on the subject, and reportedly knowing 0:15:00.640 --> 0:15:05.080 a little about physiognomy, he deliberately focused on any facial 0:15:05.160 --> 0:15:10.120 markings or perceived deformities the women had. So physiognomy, in 0:15:10.160 --> 0:15:13.000 case you do not know, is a pseudoscience. It's the 0:15:13.040 --> 0:15:17.040 practice of assessing a person's character or personality traits from 0:15:17.040 --> 0:15:22.520 their physical characteristics, and specifically their face. DuPaul reported Elizabeth 0:15:22.600 --> 0:15:26.720 had a quote large nose and beast like grin. He 0:15:26.880 --> 0:15:30.520 also wrote that she was overdressed for court and perspired 0:15:30.560 --> 0:15:35.000 too much. Leontine's left cheek, he noted, was scarred, and 0:15:35.040 --> 0:15:37.320 he went on to speculate that this may have happened 0:15:37.360 --> 0:15:40.640 in a brothel. There's no evidence at all to suggest 0:15:40.720 --> 0:15:45.560 that Josephine, he observed, seemed dirty and withered, and he 0:15:45.600 --> 0:15:49.080 wrote that she looked angry, quote like a fury. He 0:15:49.160 --> 0:15:52.440 found twenty four year old ulales face to be too large, 0:15:52.520 --> 0:15:55.560 and of Lucy well, her mouth was just too big. 0:15:56.240 --> 0:15:59.680 If you're looking for any evidence that these women were arsonists, though, 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:03.320 do not look to DuPont. His account sort of reads 0:16:03.400 --> 0:16:05.160 like a Petrelouze fanfic. 0:16:06.640 --> 0:16:09.880 Renee de Polges, a journalist for the French Daily newspaper, 0:16:10.040 --> 0:16:13.200 le Figero also expressed disappointment with the looks of the 0:16:13.240 --> 0:16:17.240 accused arsonists. In his coverage of the trial, he reported 0:16:17.240 --> 0:16:20.760 that a crowd had gathered outside the courtroom quote with 0:16:20.880 --> 0:16:24.960 some excitement, no doubt, because the very word petreluze summoned 0:16:25.040 --> 0:16:29.160 the most sinister menace, that is to say, savage hordes 0:16:29.160 --> 0:16:33.320 of she devils. However, to the audience's dismay, the persons 0:16:33.400 --> 0:16:37.600 led to the bench were ruined girls, ragged, grown pale 0:16:37.680 --> 0:16:40.440 from their night watches or darkened by the sun. Their 0:16:40.560 --> 0:16:45.040 voices hoarse, their eyes dull, no longer feminine or masculine, 0:16:45.400 --> 0:16:51.080 beings without sex, without morality, without conscience, without even cynicism. 0:16:51.760 --> 0:16:54.920 He never uses the word ugly, as DuPont like to 0:16:54.960 --> 0:16:56.360 throw about quite liberally. 0:16:56.720 --> 0:16:57.680 But he really. 0:16:57.480 --> 0:17:00.320 Doesn't have to, does he. He doesn't even describe these 0:17:00.320 --> 0:17:01.160 women as human. 0:17:02.800 --> 0:17:06.760 Writers were not the only ones describing the accused this way. 0:17:07.040 --> 0:17:11.960 The Petrelius were also vilified through visual art. Misogynistic caricatures 0:17:12.000 --> 0:17:16.440 of women were printed in publications and newspapers, most depicting 0:17:16.480 --> 0:17:21.159 female Commune art supporters as mustachioed women carrying torches and 0:17:21.280 --> 0:17:25.359 watering cans full of gasoline. Some women were drawn with 0:17:25.480 --> 0:17:29.760 pig like features. The writing and the imagery had nothing 0:17:29.800 --> 0:17:33.359 to do with evidence, but it did directly reflect societal 0:17:33.400 --> 0:17:37.200 fears at that time, fears concerning the fight for female 0:17:37.200 --> 0:17:41.560 independence and agency, and in this instance, through women's participation 0:17:41.680 --> 0:17:42.320 in revolution. 0:17:43.680 --> 0:17:47.800 Captain Juan, prosecutor at the trials, stated of the accused women, 0:17:47.920 --> 0:17:53.760 quote the horrible campaign against civilization begun on March eighteenth 0:17:53.800 --> 0:17:56.800 by people who believe in neither God nor country, and 0:17:57.560 --> 0:18:01.080 alas in great number unworthy creatus who seem to have 0:18:01.119 --> 0:18:04.280 taken on the task of becoming an opprobrium to their sex. 0:18:04.480 --> 0:18:09.600 And she becomes a moral monstrosity, then woman is more 0:18:09.680 --> 0:18:13.400 dangerous than the most dangerous man. What began with what 0:18:13.440 --> 0:18:18.440 you might consider like low hanging fruit among misogynists, such 0:18:18.480 --> 0:18:21.479 as referring to women as a she devil, became a 0:18:21.640 --> 0:18:26.040 larger and uncomfortable question of how female commune ards mattered 0:18:26.080 --> 0:18:30.040 in regard to much bigger issues such as women's legal personhood. 0:18:30.840 --> 0:18:33.720 The accused women of the Commune emerged from the flames 0:18:33.880 --> 0:18:37.359 as a mythical creature, but they also emerged as a 0:18:37.400 --> 0:18:41.199 scapegoat whose role in the Commune, say modern historians, was 0:18:41.240 --> 0:18:44.200 exaggerated in reaction to the threat they posed. 0:18:45.840 --> 0:18:50.280 Since the nineteenth century, researchers and historians have tried to 0:18:50.440 --> 0:18:53.400 estimate the number of commune Ards killed in the uprising. 0:18:54.240 --> 0:18:57.800 Current estimates suggest that at least ten thousand people most 0:18:57.880 --> 0:19:00.960 during the Bloody Week, but as many as twenty thousand 0:19:01.000 --> 0:19:02.240 deaths may have happened. 0:19:03.520 --> 0:19:05.600 We are going to take a break forward from our 0:19:05.640 --> 0:19:08.200 sponsor now, but when we're back we will talk more 0:19:08.280 --> 0:19:12.120 about the depiction of the petreluse and the misogynistic narrative 0:19:12.240 --> 0:19:20.840 that formed around the female commune arts. 0:19:28.440 --> 0:19:32.680 Welcome back to Criminalia. Let's continue talking about the way 0:19:33.280 --> 0:19:36.480 female commune arts were treated after the uprising and how 0:19:36.520 --> 0:19:39.800 their story became mythology. 0:19:39.840 --> 0:19:43.199 Even before the trials began, the press had fixated on 0:19:43.280 --> 0:19:48.040 a perverse idea of the petroluse. In their writing, reporters 0:19:48.160 --> 0:19:53.359 invoked descriptions including things like she wolves, the hydra, and 0:19:53.560 --> 0:19:59.080 other mythological monstrosities to describe the accused women. Early political 0:19:59.160 --> 0:20:03.160 cartoons printed newspapers portrayed women from the commune as ghoules 0:20:03.280 --> 0:20:08.520 carrying cans of gasoline. Propaganda postcards showed the petrulus as 0:20:08.560 --> 0:20:12.960 a witch, usually holding a water can and quote watering 0:20:13.040 --> 0:20:17.680 the fires of destruction because they violated traditional gender rules. 0:20:17.720 --> 0:20:21.399 Female commune ards were considered by journalists and illustrators to 0:20:21.400 --> 0:20:26.000 be unfeminine, and we saw the quote unnatural so many times. 0:20:26.359 --> 0:20:30.480 They were certainly not welcome in joining the political discourse. 0:20:31.480 --> 0:20:35.480 French novelist and poet Arson Hussai, who was a contemporary 0:20:35.520 --> 0:20:39.600 to the Commune, disparagingly wrote that quote with a kick 0:20:39.640 --> 0:20:42.440 to their skirts, we should cast into the hell of malediction, 0:20:42.640 --> 0:20:45.480 all these horrible creatures who have dishonored women in the 0:20:45.520 --> 0:20:49.880 saturnalias and impieties of the Commune. 0:20:49.920 --> 0:20:53.320 Of the misogynistic press coverage. Author Gaye Gilixen writes that 0:20:53.400 --> 0:20:59.080 quote virtually overnight, this representation of the dangerous, unruly female 0:20:59.080 --> 0:21:02.960 incendiary came to symbolize the evils of the commune. For 0:21:03.000 --> 0:21:06.240 its critics, she could not have been imagined without the 0:21:06.280 --> 0:21:09.359 fires that burned furiously in parts of the city. But 0:21:09.480 --> 0:21:13.640 she was also the heir of the female representations already circulating, 0:21:14.000 --> 0:21:21.119 the gun wielding Amazons, furies, viragos, female orators, and cantinier. Instead, 0:21:21.200 --> 0:21:25.479 the Petrulus lingered in people's minds, a powerful personification of 0:21:25.560 --> 0:21:28.639 evil with which to condemn the commune and to question 0:21:28.760 --> 0:21:30.160 the very nature of woman. 0:21:33.359 --> 0:21:37.680 Not all coverage of the women came from outside the commune, 0:21:37.720 --> 0:21:41.760 though in her memoirs completed in eighteen eighty six, female 0:21:41.760 --> 0:21:45.520 communore Louise Michelle described her mindset at the time as 0:21:45.680 --> 0:21:51.320 quote all or nothing of the events. She wrote barbarian 0:21:51.400 --> 0:21:54.000 that I am I love cannon, the smell of powder, 0:21:54.119 --> 0:21:57.960 machine gun bullets in the air. In contrast to the 0:21:58.000 --> 0:22:02.439 circulating propaganda, In real photographs of Luise, she appears to 0:22:02.440 --> 0:22:07.200 be a no nonsense woman dressed in a National Guard uniform. 0:22:08.400 --> 0:22:12.920 Summarized by French writer and male communard Benois Mallon, quote, 0:22:13.119 --> 0:22:16.760 above all, one important fact that the Paris Revolution brought 0:22:16.800 --> 0:22:20.520 to light is the entry of women into politics. They 0:22:20.560 --> 0:22:23.760 felt that the cooperation of women was indispensable to the 0:22:23.800 --> 0:22:28.199 triumph of the social revolution, which had reached the fighting stage. 0:22:28.600 --> 0:22:31.919 The woman and the proletariat, those ultimate victims of the 0:22:31.960 --> 0:22:36.160 old order, could not hope for their emancipation except by 0:22:36.160 --> 0:22:39.840 forming a strong union against all the forces of the past. 0:22:41.520 --> 0:22:46.239 Gullixon explains that quote vengeful proletarians were dangerous enough, but 0:22:46.520 --> 0:22:50.760 women posed even greater threats to the social order. She continues, 0:22:50.840 --> 0:22:54.399 explaining that there were damaging ideologies that grew up around 0:22:54.440 --> 0:22:57.520 the female commun art stories which show us today the 0:22:57.640 --> 0:23:01.720 extent of the fears around French women's potential political power 0:23:01.760 --> 0:23:06.280 and agency. During the Proletariat's civil war and revolution, they 0:23:06.320 --> 0:23:10.280 were punished for existing outside of the traditional domestic rule. 0:23:10.680 --> 0:23:13.320 Some were exiled and others were killed when the Commune 0:23:13.359 --> 0:23:14.600 fell to the Third Republic. 0:23:16.040 --> 0:23:20.080 Activist and founder of the Union des Femme Elizabeth Mitriev, 0:23:20.240 --> 0:23:23.960 a contemporary of the Paris Commune, once stated that these women, 0:23:24.080 --> 0:23:27.359 these radical women, felt that they could achieve quote the 0:23:27.440 --> 0:23:31.920 creation of a new social order founded on equality, solidarity 0:23:32.160 --> 0:23:35.639 and of freedom, but it wasn't meant to be. Instead 0:23:35.680 --> 0:23:39.480 of improving women's rights, female supporters of the Commune were 0:23:39.480 --> 0:23:44.320 demonized for daring to involve themselves in politics. Long after 0:23:44.359 --> 0:23:48.000 the Commune was gone, spite lingered and the women, or 0:23:48.359 --> 0:23:52.879 more accurately, the idea of what these women represented, became 0:23:53.000 --> 0:23:56.320 a successful scapegoat for the French state regarding the burning 0:23:56.359 --> 0:24:01.560 of Paris and atrocities committed during the uprising. These women 0:24:01.800 --> 0:24:05.240 are forever immortalized in the image of the Petreloeus and 0:24:05.320 --> 0:24:08.880 their mythology went beyond the borders of Paris and France. 0:24:09.520 --> 0:24:14.280 American politician and diplomat Elihu Washburn, for example, is known 0:24:14.320 --> 0:24:17.960 to have brought home tales of the quote savage petrelus 0:24:18.040 --> 0:24:21.400 in Paris, imagine that dinner party conversation. 0:24:25.520 --> 0:24:28.720 In the aftermath of the Paris Commune, a general feeling, 0:24:29.080 --> 0:24:33.600 like a general undercurrent throughout the city allowed for the 0:24:33.680 --> 0:24:39.199 concept of femininity to become greatly distorted among the public, politicians, 0:24:39.240 --> 0:24:43.520 and among the press covering the events. To quote Gallixen again, 0:24:43.640 --> 0:24:45.840 and this is because she really hits the nail on 0:24:45.880 --> 0:24:49.879 the head here. Bourgeois men and women were obsessed with 0:24:50.000 --> 0:24:54.480 representations of the women on the barricades as immoral and unnatural. 0:24:55.760 --> 0:24:59.439 For conservatives, the fires and the sinister Petreloeus were a 0:24:59.440 --> 0:25:03.600 godsend since they distracted attention from the army's slaughter of 0:25:03.640 --> 0:25:05.000 the Parisians. 0:25:06.320 --> 0:25:10.840 Everyone from historians to politicians to Parisian citizens has a 0:25:10.840 --> 0:25:15.200 differing view on the significance of the Petrulus, the violent uprising, 0:25:15.280 --> 0:25:19.800 and the commune. Revolutionary Karl Marx described the Paris Commune 0:25:19.880 --> 0:25:23.760 as the first proletarian revolution, one that rejected the authority 0:25:23.800 --> 0:25:27.560 of the French Third Republic. Vladimir Lenin, founder of the 0:25:27.600 --> 0:25:31.960 Russian Communist Party, was impressed by the quote revolutionary passion 0:25:32.320 --> 0:25:36.399 of the Commune arts. Chinese communist revolutionary and the founder 0:25:36.440 --> 0:25:39.879 of the People's Republic of China Mau Situng spoke of 0:25:39.920 --> 0:25:42.000 being inspired by the Commune Arts. 0:25:43.480 --> 0:25:47.760 But those women accused of using nineteenth century Molotov cocktails 0:25:47.800 --> 0:25:52.760 to burn down Paris, that's right, they didn't exist. 0:25:59.240 --> 0:26:02.679 All right, Maria. Yes, it's a new season and a 0:26:02.720 --> 0:26:05.800 new drink segment, so we're calling this one Lighter Fluid. 0:26:05.960 --> 0:26:06.600 Which I love. 0:26:08.720 --> 0:26:11.080 I can already tell that the challenge of this season 0:26:11.280 --> 0:26:14.920 is not making everything a spicy fire. 0:26:14.760 --> 0:26:17.200 Drink exactly, can we Let's just set all the drinks 0:26:17.280 --> 0:26:18.639 up and we'd get boring. 0:26:19.080 --> 0:26:22.160 They may all be spicy. We'll see what happens, We'll 0:26:22.200 --> 0:26:27.120 see what feels correct. So in this case, I started 0:26:27.160 --> 0:26:31.440 to think about flavors common in French foods. French food 0:26:32.080 --> 0:26:36.320 not really known for its spicy, fiery dishes, so that's 0:26:36.400 --> 0:26:39.560 one thing. But what French food is known for, among 0:26:39.600 --> 0:26:42.240 other things, is it's beautiful pastries. And so I started 0:26:42.240 --> 0:26:47.560 thinking about French fruit tarts. So usually like a fruit tart, 0:26:47.600 --> 0:26:51.040