Alix Payen

Her letters, a rare contemporary testimony, give an account of women's participation in the fighting and their place in it, ambiguous between overstepping a space reserved for men and accepting male domination, through the duties imposed on the wife who follows her husband.

After his death, his correspondence was published in 1910 by Paul Milliet, Alix Payen's brother, as part of a family biography in the Cahiers de la Quinzaine directed by Charles Péguy, and then in 2020 in a book dedicated to him by Michèle Audin.

This resulted in the fall of the Emperor and the siege of Paris, which began in September 1870 and ended on March 2 of the following year, and which saw the defeat of the nascent French Republic, then led by the monarchists.

[7][19] Paul, who had been active in combat since August in the 1st company of engineers of the Paris army, was successively posted to the Avron plateau, Pantin, Le Bourget in December[19] and Buzenval in January.

[28] Their correspondence resumed in April, between Paris, where Alix Payen, her husband, her mother, her brother and her sister were based, and the Colonie de Condé-sur-Vesgre where Félix Milliet was once again alone.

If the transport of letters sent from Paris was ensured by Albert Theisz, administrator of the postal services during the insurrectionary period, via Saint-Denis, the reverse correspondence was much more complex.

[...] But you understand that this is not the time to leave Henri there".Fighting broke out near Paris in the first days of April 1871, pitting Commune supporters against Versailles troops, who were responding to the "chief executive" of the new republic, Adolphe Thiers.

[...] Mr S. took me there very reluctantly and often told me that there was still time to change my mind".On the battlefield,[35][37] Alix Payen shares the difficult living conditions of the soldiers.

In the morning, the legion commander Maxime Lisbonne decided to take the battalion to the trenches at Montrouge; the soldiers protested again and managed to settle in the Oiseaux building.

In 1873 she was to marry Édouard Lockroy, a journalist and member of the Radical Party, who was to become a minister, but the project fell through after he was sentenced to prison for his writings in Le Rappel.

[4][56] In order to support herself,[17] Alix Payen tried to reconvert to art,[55] an activity already practised by her brother Paul - who made a career in it - by her father[6] and her younger sister.

In the family biography, her brother Paul Milliet wrote: "Alix Payen, not being married under the community property regime, could have saved her dowry; she abandoned it to her husband's creditors.

[69] Michèle Audin speculates on the invisibility of her existence and that of her writings - even though Édith Thomas had mentioned her in her book Les Pétroleuses - and on the fact that Alix Payen does not correspond to the stereotypes constructed by the Versaillais or those of historians specialising in the Commune.

[73] Four years later, he brought together all of these chapters in a two-volume work, Une famille de républicains fouriéristes, les Milliet,[1] which he had published by Georges Crès.

[3] Even though he reworked some of the letters,[70] he gave them a prominent place in the chapter dedicated to the Commune battles, to the point that they alone constitute the narrative and that Paul Miliet intervenes only to specify the historical context.

After having had access to the family archives of the descendants of Louise Milliet's daughter,[28] held by Danielle Duizabo, she had them published, with many unpublished works,[60] by Libertalia in 2020, under the title C'est la nuit surtout que le combat devient furieux.

[80][9] In this regard, she wrote on 24 April: "When we left Issy [for Vanves], an order had been read to us stating that from now on the advanced posts would be relieved every 24 hours, in spite of this we stayed three days in this cesspool.

[...] The beds are bad and there is a lack of medicine; there is all that is needed for surgery, but no other remedies, so one of our men is devoured by fever and for the last four days the major has not been able to get any quinine".In spite of everything, Alix Payen testifies to the good comradeship within the 153rd Battalion and to the attention she receives from the soldiers.

[87] Chanoine, a worker in Henri Payen's factory[86][Alpha 7] from Clichy,[88] is compared to the figure of the "Parisian from the suburbs, cheerful, mocking, a bit of a rogue".

[88] Alix Payen also writes about Émile Lalande, the commander of the battalion,[41] who "is said to be very energetic and very brave; his physiognomy seems to indicate this",[87] or, on several occasions, about Mme Mallet, a "fancy canteen girl" and a half-caste.

[89][12] Her husband Henry was killed on 27 April in the annex of the Oiseaux convent,[72] so, having returned to Paris on the day of the tragedy, Alix Payen welcomed Mrs. Mallet into her home.

[15] Louise Milliet, her little sister aged seventeen, developed radical and spontaneous ideas,[9] expressed her sympathies towards the Commune and her antipathy towards the Church,[58] whereas her mother was more critical and moderate.

So I look and I listen, the great malaise is that men are lacking, on the one hand there are only the old gossipers of 1830 and on the other, green fruit that is not ripe at all".Their letters, like those of Alix Payen before her departure for combat, also bear witness to life in a Paris that was twice besieged.

"I hear that the most frightening rumours are being spread in the provinces about Paris, which is nevertheless very quiet and has not yet looted or killed anything, whatever the Versaillais say".Thus, the correspondence within the Milliet family is a source of description of several events of the Commune, or others that just precede it: the uprising of 22 January 1871 and its murderous shootings at the Hôtel de Ville,[28][24] an important funeral procession for national guards killed during the first confrontations - and first defeats - on 9 April from the Palais de l'Industrie,[28] a demonstration of 6,000 Freemasons for conciliation on April 29 - many of whom took up arms alongside the Fédérés[Alpha 8][74] or the fighting and fires during the Semaine sanglante, when Versailles troops took over Paris, which Mother Louise Milliet describes with observation.

[91][9] "Paris was in flames on all sides, we were fighting on the Boulevard Montparnasse and the Observatory when suddenly fire broke out in the Luxembourg barracks and a moment later the powder magazine blew up!

Shrapnel and bullets rained down on us, we were there about forty people, it was impossible to escape, they were fighting on the boulevard, the attack and defence were furious at the Panthéon, the National Guards had received orders to blow up the Panthéon and even, it is said, the St. Etienne library".Among the women who joined the Paris Commune, the majority did so with a political aim, with the desire to build a new society and improve the condition of women.

Her bourgeois origin also distinguishes her from most of the Communard women, who come from the bottom of the wage scale and live a life of misery, toil and struggle to feed their children.

[92][83][9] Dr. Carolyn J. Eichner,[93] in an analysis in her 2004 book Surmounting the Barricades: Women in the Paris Commune, sees her as an illustration of how a woman's social position affects her life on the battlefield.

Alix Payen's companions thus provide her with privileges based on her presumed demands as a bourgeois woman, even though their temporary abandonment does not seem to bother her.

She committed herself more out of love for Henri Payen than out of militancy,[Alpha 9] complying with the duty of a wife imposed on her, even if it meant sacrificing her well-being and putting her life in danger.

Portrait of Henri Payen, cut below the trunk. He is dressed in a suit, with a bow tie. Looking to the left, he is leaning on a pile of books.
Portrait of Henri Payen.
Oval frame, composed of a small illustration in the centre surrounded by a dozen medallions that occupy most of the frame. The central illustration represents a dozen characters, some of whom are dancing, as well as two angels.
Filigree and enamel frame, created by Henri Payen and presented at the 1862 Universal Exhibition in London .
Painting representing a bivouac of soldiers of the French army. They occupy the lower half of the painting, the other half is occupied by a large grey cloud. Dozens of soldiers are standing in uniform or wrapped in blankets; some are sleeping on the ground or in a small trench. Behind them, there is no vegetation left. In the background, a large building, of which only parts of the wall remain.
Bivouac after the battle of Le Bourget , December 21st 1870 , oil on canvas by Alphonse de Neuville in 1873, kept at the Musée d'Orsay . Paul Milliet takes part in the battle of Le Bourget .
View of the uprising from a Parisian rooftop. Hundreds of people are agitated in the Place de l'Hôtel de Ville: most are fleeing, some are firing their guns and others are on the ground. Shots were also fired from all the houses surrounding the square. From the hotel, all the windows are occupied by soldiers firing.
Alix Payen's mother and youngest sister witnessed the uprising of 22 January 1871. The Breton mobile guard fired from the town hall at the crowd and the National Guard .
Engraving depicting two lines of French soldiers marching at night through a hilly, unvegetated landscape. All that can be seen of them is the tips of their weapons. In the background, most of the houses are on fire.
Attack by night ( Moulin Saquet ), aquatint by Léopold Desbrosses in 1871, in the British Museum . Representation of the war in Vitry .
Watercolour by Jean-Baptiste Arnaud-Durbec depicting the construction of a barricade on the Place Blanche on 19 March 1871. In the foreground, we can see people, including a man dressed in a red top, bent over and armed with a pickaxe to unseal the cobblestones placed further away by his comrades. Two children are lying just behind the barricade of paving stones, and on the lower right-hand side of the painting in the foreground a woman can be seen holding an object out to a kneeling man, a broom lying on the ground behind her. On the left, a man sitting on a straw mattress seems to be breaking bread, a woman and a dog sitting next to him. Three men are talking on the right-hand side of the painting, and the other figures in the background are placing the cobblestones to raise the barricade. Beyond the barricade in the shade is the sunny square with buildings. The watercolour is in the Carnavalet Museum in Paris.
Construction of a barricade on Place Blanche on March 19, 1871, watercolour by Jean-Baptiste Arnaud-Durbec. Preserved in the Carnavalet Museum in Paris .
Back of a letter, bearing the following cancellation: "Saint-Denis-sur-Seine (60) May 15th 1871". It is addressed to : "Monsieur Milliet à la Colonie de Condé sur Vesgre."
Letter addressed to Félix Milliet, passed in Saint-Denis on May 15, 1871.
Brown ink drawing by Alexandre Dupendant showing in the foreground a group of ten women, one of whom is seated, holding a barricade in the Rochefouart district. They are armed and standing behind a high barricade. Six are standing behind the barricade and looking down, one is holding a large bag or stone and is about to throw it or put it in place. Buildings can be seen in the background. The drawing is kept in the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire de Saint-Denis
A barricade of women in the faubourg Rochechouard (sic) , brown ink and gouache drawing by Alexandre Dupendant. Held in the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire de Saint-Denis .
The fort at Issy destroyed by Versailles bombardment, photograph by Alphonse Liébert . "One by one [the shells] dismantled the pieces of the fort at Issy. One can see the baskets filled with earth jump into the air, then some sections of wall collapse with noise", 27th or 28 April. [ 32 ]
Scan of a pass used by Alix Payen. It reads: 'Paris, April 16th 1871. Legion Council of the tenth arrondissement. Let Madame Payen pass, living at number 17 rue Martel, joining the hundred and fifty-third battalion at the fort of Issy to do military service there and to follow the hundred and fifty-third battalion in all its marches. The president of the council, Leroudier.
Pass of April 16, 1871. [ 34 ]
Photograph of the fort of Vanvres, destroyed by the war. In the foreground, a road leading up to it, ending in a bridge. It crosses a low wall which is partly destroyed. In the second plan, the fort's wall and an entrance, located behind a ditch and only slightly damaged. Behind the wall, a few buildings can be seen, including a large barracks of which only parts of the facades remain.
The fort of Vanves at the end of the wars of 1870 and 1871, photograph by Alphonse Liébert .
Pass of April 19, 1871 in Issy. [ 42 ]
Certificate confirming Alix Payen's status as a nurse in the 153rd Battalion, dated May 9, 1871. [ 44 ]
Illustration of a barricade on rue Peyronnet in Neuilly in 1871. The barricade, in the foreground, is made up of sacks, paving stones and rubble. Behind it, the street and its buildings bear the traces of bombardment. Some facades have fallen down, the only houses that seem to have escaped are in the background.
Barricade on rue Peyronnet in Neuilly in 1871, graphite drawing by Léon Jacque.
Portrait of Alix Payen, sitting in a chair, reading a newspaper. She is drawn in three-quarter view, with her hair tied back and in a brown dress.
Alix Payen reading L'Aurore .
Bust of Alix Payen in earthenware by her sister Louise Milliet. She is drawn from the side with her hair braided.
Faience portrait of Alix Payen by her sister.
Photograph of the main building of the Colonie, Condé-sur-Vesgre. It is a long symmetrical one-storey building with large regular windows, six on each side of the door. In front of it is a small grassy area with bushes and a few trees.
The main building of the Colony, in Condé-sur-Vesgre .
Photograph of the Miliet family outdoors. On the left, Louise Milliet, aged thirty-eight, is sitting on a bench with her two children in front of her. Her husband is standing behind her. On the right are Alix and Paul Milliet, aged fifty and forty-eight. Louise Milliet, aged seventy, sits in the middle of the bench and separates the siblings.
Family photo from 1892. From left to right: Louise Milliet, her son Roland, her husband Paul Hubert, her daughter Sabine, their mother Louise Milliet, Alix Payen (under the name Poisson) and Paul Milliet.
Fragment of a letter from Alix Payen recopied in his memoirs, dated 18 April.
Fragment of a letter from Alix Payen, dated April 16, [ 9 ] copied in ink in his memoirs. [ 66 ]
Scan of the first page of a chapter of the second volume of "A family of Fourierist republicans, the Milliets". Dedicated to Alix Payen, it is entitled "Alix Payen ambulancière". Its subtitles are: "The cemetery of Issy. - Vanves. - The Convent of the Birds. - Abandonment of the fort of Issy. - The Bineau Gate. - Levallois-Perret. - Neuilly. - The end of the drama. - Letters."
Chapter " Alix Payen ambulancière " in the second volume of Une famille de républicains fouriéristes, les Milliet , published in 1916.
Photograph of Paul Milliet, older than during the events of the Commune. He is sitting on a chair outside a house, holding a book in his hands.
Paul Milliet , brother of Alix Payen and author of the family biography.
Medallion portrait of Alix Payen. She is in front, standing and holding her face while leaning on a seat back. She is dressed in a dress and has long, braided hair.
Portrait of Alix Payen.
Scan of an extract from a letter from Alix Payen to her mother, bearing no date.
Letter from Alix Payen to her mother, undated.
Aerial view of Paris and the Seine. From the foreground to the background, there are about twenty fire starts, of varying size.
Panorama of the fires in Paris from 23 to 25 May 1871, lithograph by Auguste Victor Deroy. Preserved in the Carnavalet Museum in Paris.
Colour lithograph entitled "Canteen Girls". Two white canteen women are standing in front of an empty background, looking at each other. One is from behind, holding a basket of provisions and a small barrel. She is wearing a blue and red kepi, a blue suit, a blue and red skirt and a white stocking. The second, from the front, is similar to the first, except that she is wearing a hat, has no basket and her trousers are white and red.
Canteen workers , lithograph by Alexandre Lacauchie and Villain, produced between 1848 and 1852. In the British Museum in London .