57 Facts About Louise Michel

Louise Michel was a teacher and important figure in the Paris Commune.

Louise Michel was born on 29 May 1830 as the illegitimate daughter of a serving-maid, Marianne Michel, and the son of the house, Laurent Demahis.

Louise Michel was raised by her paternal grandparents, Charlotte and Charles-Etienne Demahis, in north-eastern France.

Louise Michel spent her childhood in the Chateau de Vroncourt and was provided with a liberal education.

In 1865 Michel opened a school in Paris which became known for its modern and progressive methods.

Louise Michel corresponded with the prominent French romanticist Victor Hugo and began publishing poetry.

Louise Michel expressed disappointment that the death of Noir had not been used to overthrow the Empire.

Louise Michel was the lover of Theophile Ferre, a senior member of the Commune and of its Committee of Public Safety.

Louise Michel was aligned with Ferre and Raoul Rigault, two of the most militant members of the Paris Commune.

In December 1871, Louise Michel was tried by a military court along with thousands of prisoners captured during the Bloody Week.

Louise Michel was charged with offences including trying to overthrow the government, encouraging citizens to arm themselves, and herself using weapons and wearing a military uniform.

Louise Michel was among the 1,169 supporters of the Commune who were sentenced to deportation.

Louise Michel met Nathalie Lemel, another figure active in the commune.

Louise Michel remained in New Caledonia for seven years and befriended the local Kanak people.

Louise Michel taught French to the Kanaks and took their side in the 1878 Kanak revolt.

Louise Michel gave a public address on 21 November 1880 and continued her revolutionary activity in Europe, attending the anarchist congress in London in 1881, where she led demonstrations and spoke to huge crowds.

Reputedly, Louise Michel led this demonstration with a black flag, which has since become a symbol of anarchism.

Louise Michel was tried for her actions in the riot and used the court to publicly defend her anarchist principles.

Louise Michel was sentenced to six years of solitary confinement for inciting the looting.

Louise Michel opened a school and moved among the European anarchist exile circles.

Louise Michel's aim was to develop among the children the principles of humanity and justice.

Some of Louise Michel's writings were translated into English by the poet Louisa Sarah Bevington.

Louise Michel's published works were translated into Spanish by the anarchist Soledad Gustavo.

In 1895 Sebastien Faure and Louise Michel founded the French anarchist periodical Le Libertaire, now called Le Monde Libertaire.

The young Goldman was hugely impressed by Louise Michel, considering her to have a "social instinct developed to the extreme".

Louise Michel was scheduled to meet the anti-colonial campaigner Isabelle Eberhardt, but Eberhardt died shortly before Louise Michel arrived in Algeria.

Louise Michel died of pneumonia in Marseille on 10 January 1905.

Louise Michel's grave is in the cemetery of Levallois-Perret, in one of the suburbs of Paris.

Shortly after Louise Michel was born in 1830 a short-lived revolt resulted in a constitutional monarchy being established.

Louise Michel first made a name for herself by publicly defending the poor and working-class women.

Louise Michel signed a number of her published political writings with Enjolras, the name of the revolutionary in Hugo's Les Miserables.

Louise Michel pushed through the separation of church and state, initiated educational reforms and codified rights for workers.

When Louise Michel was tried, she demanded to be killed by firing squad and proclaimed "If you let me live, I shall never stop crying for vengeance, and I shall avenge my brothers by denouncing the murderers".

Louise Michel was imprisoned for two years before she was deported.

Louise Michel embraced anarchism and for the rest of her life rejected all forms of government.

Louise Michel was introduced to the tenets of anarchism by a fellow prisoner Nathalie Lemel, with whom she was imprisoned in a large cage for several months.

Louise Michel became known for her selfless generosity and devotion to others.

Louise Michel spent time with the indigenous Kanak people, teaching them French so that they could challenge the French authorities.

Louise Michel supported them in their revolt against the colonial power.

Louise Michel soon began her career as a public speaker and found an audience all over Europe.

Louise Michel frequently spoke on women's rights from an anarchist perspective.

Louise Michel embarked on a journey towards a new political philosophy.

The revolutionary characters in The Strike expected to die, but instead they gave life to a new age and Louise Michel discussed the rights and responsibilities of the people who lived in the aftermath of a revolution.

Louise Michel staged her plays in accordance with Jean Grave's theory on audience participation.

Louise Michel lived at a time when hunger was widespread among the working poor of Europe.

Louise Michel believed that technological progress would replace physical labour with machines.

Louise Michel argued instead, that progress came through intellectual development, social evolution and liberation.

Louise Michel did not only bemoan the poverty in which people across Europe lived, she advanced a detailed critique of 19th century capitalism.

Louise Michel lamented the deficiencies of the capitalist banking system and predicted that the concentration of capital would result in the ruin of small enterprises and the middle class.

Louise Michel came to reject terror as a means of bringing about a new era.

Louise Michel took the view that it is best if the leaders of such a revolution would perish, so that the people would not be burdened with surviving general staff.

Louise Michel thought that "power is evil" and in her mind history was the story of free people being enslaved.

Louise Michel was among the more influential French political figures in the second half of the 19th century.

Louise Michel was one of the more powerful women political theorists of her day.

Louise Michel became a national heroine in France and was revered as the "great citizen".

Louise Michel was rediscovered by French feminists in the 1970s through the works of Xaviere Gauthier.

Louise Michel is the subject of Mary M Talbot and Bryan Talbot's graphic work, The Red Virgin and the Vision of Utopia.