1897
Interesting woman too, educated at a convent, so you might not predict feminism or journalism for her future. And you would be correct, because, aged fifteen, it was the world of the theatre that she chose, winning a place at the Conservatoire National Supérieur
de Musique et de Danse, and then joining the company of the Comédie-Française when she graduated.
But being a stage-actress, and being stunningly beautiful, in that male world, also meant being expected to provide positive responses to calling-cards left by male admirers at the stage door, and she was not interested in what was effectively prostitution by gifts instead of money. So she left, and got married, to the lawyer Georges Laguerre, a man with strong political aspirations, and close contacts with "Général Revanche", Georges Boulanger really, a French army officer who had risen very high on the "populist" scale of polling-predictions, obtaining that nickname when he led the responses to France's defeat in the Franco-German war of 1870, wounded when he led the suppression of the Paris Commune in 1871, war minister at one point, a key player in the Radical Party of Georges Clemenceau, the icon and idol of a "Boulangist" movement that wanted him to become the head of government and bring down the Third Republic... a new Napoléon...
But being a stage-actress, and being stunningly beautiful, in that male world, also meant being expected to provide positive responses to calling-cards left by male admirers at the stage door, and she was not interested in what was effectively prostitution by gifts instead of money. So she left, and got married, to the lawyer Georges Laguerre, a man with strong political aspirations, and close contacts with "Général Revanche", Georges Boulanger really, a French army officer who had risen very high on the "populist" scale of polling-predictions, obtaining that nickname when he led the responses to France's defeat in the Franco-German war of 1870, wounded when he led the suppression of the Paris Commune in 1871, war minister at one point, a key player in the Radical Party of Georges Clemenceau, the icon and idol of a "Boulangist" movement that wanted him to become the head of government and bring down the Third Republic... a new Napoléon...
But then the common sense people in government realised where this was leading, turned against him, put him on trial... you can read about his suicide and the collapse of the movement for yourself. The point for Marguerite Durand was that she lived through these years of crisis, very close to the centre, and detested and despised all of it, including herself for marrying a man with the name Laguerre. Yes, it had given her a way-out of the whoredom of the theatre, and an entry to the world of journalism, but beyond that? Alpha-maledom in another of its vile forms of self-expression. When Boulanger committed suicide in September 1891, Marguerite said goodbye to her husband, slamming the door behind her literally as well as metaphorically.
And headed straight for "Le Figaro", where she discovered that getting jobs in newspapers was little different from the world of the theatre; she had a child with Antonin Périvier, one of the directors, who then threw her out, but kept the child, until she managed to get legal assistance to recover him. And then got thrown out of the paper, having being sent to cover the 1896 International Feminist
Congress in Paris, but with an expectation that she would mock, deride and disparage it. She refused. They fired her.
So "La Fronde" as her way of throwing back the slingshot (click here for an explanation of that). Including taking the Dreyfus side in that particular controversy. And not just fighting for feminism, but against misogyny, which in this case was made manifest by her journalists, being women, being barred from places like the National Assembly or the Bourse, required to obtain special permission in order to report on a debate or interview a Minister. She won that battle, but most of the others would take another several decades after her death. Amongst her campaigns: admission to the Bar association and the École des Beaux-Arts; women to be named to the Légion d'Honneur and to participate in parliamentary debates... many more, including the organisation of several trade unions for women...
And next time you're in Paris, don't forget to visit the gorgeous library named in honour of the vast collection of papers she donated at her death, the Bibliothèque Marguerite Durand
John Milton, English poet, born today in 1608. Two entries in my "Private Collection", click here, and here
and a very different piece being prepared for Prashker's London - well, you can't spend as much time as I do in the Barbican Centre, staring out the window at the church of St Giles Cruplegate, and then leaving for the train via Milton St, without wanting to follow through the links and connections, and find out whether any sort of Paradise may be recoverable from the utter wilderness of Brutalist architecture.
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