Born into a family of peasants on 24 August 1835 in Ardelay (Vendée),[1] Marie Augustine Gaboriaud left to work as a washerwoman in Paris in the 1860s.
[2] On 15 January 1867, she married Jules Chiffon, a merchant from a family of stonemasons from the Dijon region.
Her husband had been elected captain of the 121st battalion of the National Guard on 28 March 1871, the day before the proclamation of the Commune Council.
[2] During the semaine sanglante ("bloody week"), when Versailles troops entered Paris, Chiffon and her husband defended the Pont d’Austerlitz and Boulevard Mazas [fr].
[3] She allowed the National Guard to enter a house to defend Daumesnil Avenue [fr],[4] where she and her husband lived.