Louise Michel

**Louise Michel** (born 29th of May, 1830 - died 9th of January 1905) also known as "**Enjolras**" was a teacher, writer and anarchist active in France. She is notable for participating in the Paris Commune and her support for the freedom of New Caledonia. She was also the first person to fly the black flag, now a popular anarchist symbol.

## Life

### Early life as a teacher

Born in the Château de Vroncourt in Haute-Marne in May 1830, she was the daughter of a squire who lived in a castle and the granddaughter of a former lawyer in the Ancien Regime. She received a liberal education and studied the works of Voltaire and Rosseau and was described as altruistic from a young age. However, the death of her grandparents in 1850 left her without much means of support, but she continued to study at university to become a teacher. She refused to swear an oath to Napoleon III and eventually made schools of her own in Audeloncourt, Clefmont and Millieres. In 1856 she left for Paris and worked as a teacher for 15 years, opening 2 more schools in the 1850s. She conversed with famous French writer Victor Hugo and indulged in poetry as a hobby.

### Radicalisation

She became increasingly involved with revolutionary circles in France, meeting Jules Vallès, Eugène Varlin, Raoul Rigault and Émile Eudes and worked for an anti-government newspaper. In 1869 she became secretary of the Democratic Moralisation Society which aimed to help women workers. She subscribed to Blanquism, a kind of proto authoritarian socialism popular in France at the time. When the Paris Commune emerged, she fought as a fighter while also working as an ambulance driver. She advocated for the Paris Commune to attack the central government and dissolve the government while they had the chance, but her ideas were not followed through on.

### Deportation to New Caledonia

After the commune she was arrested by the French military and many of her friends were executed. She called for her death in court and was deported afterwards to New Caledonia. She met Nathalie Lemel while being transported by ship on a 4 month voyage, and became convinced of anarchism. While in New Caledonia she created a local newspaper and learnt the indigenous Kanak language, publishing the myths of the Kanak people into poetry for French readers. She was one of the few Europeans who advocated for the Kanak during the failed Kanak revolt of 1878. In 1879 she began to work as a teacher again, teaching children of deported dissidents and adult Kanak.

### Return to France

Upon her return to France in November 1880, she was welcomed by a crowd of nearly 10,000 people in Paris who shouted "Long live Louise Michel! Long live the Commune!". She continued to advocate for anarchism in France, advocating for the adoption of the black flag instead of the red flags which were associated with authoritarian and reformist socialists. She was arrested in 1883 for helping an unemployed march which involved the looting of 3 bakeries and against later in the year after giving a speech defending mine workers. In 1887 she publicly criticised the death penalty and was nearly assassinated in 1888, with a bullet being lodged in her skull. She was arrested again in 1990 due to a speech she gave apparently inciting riots and she ended up leaving France for England, where she ran an anarchist school. She returned to France in 1895 and remained relatively neutral during the Dreyfus Affair. She continued to advocate for anarchism in the 1890s and befriended Sebastien Faure and Errico Malatesta. She did a speaking tour in Algeria in 1904 and died in the mountains in 1905 after becoming ill.

## Sources

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise\_Michel