III
IN the combination of all these causes, then, economic, industrial, cosmopolitan, social, religious, and literary, the awakening has come to the women—and men—of France. The successive steps, seeming slow as they were laboriously gained, become rapid in retrospect. In professional studies, since 1868, when the first woman was admitted to a medical school, one after another all barriers have come down, till to-day all doors are wide open, and in the University of Paris alone there are over two thousand women students. After permission to study and take a degree was obtained, came the more arduous struggle to be allowed to practise their profession, for prejudice acted as a complete boycott. The prejudice was of two sorts. One was that of friends and family, who considered a woman utterly disgraced if she worked. This attitude is still general, and is the cause of untold unhappiness and estrangement. The other prejudice, and a strong one, was from her competitors, the men. Women medical students could obtain their degree, but had no opportunity to attend clinics or to be internes in hospitals. Law students, likewise, could not take the bar examinations or practise. It is owing to the unflagging efforts of two or three able women that this competitive struggle is also now a thing of the past. Mlle. Jeanne Chauvin was the test case in law practice. She won after a long and bitter struggle only ten years ago. In the profession of university teaching women have been on a par with men since Mme. Curie, having twice won the Nobel prize for her benefits to mankind through her chemical discoveries, was appointed to succeed her deceased husband in the chair of physics and chemistry in the Sorbonne. Three years ago she became the test case in yet another contest—a contest over the right of women to public recognition of their attainments by admission to the Academy. In this first engagement, like most pioneers, she lost; but the decision raised such a storm of protest and discussion that there is scarcely a question of the ultimate victory in this also. We shall yet see women taking their honored place among the seats of the famous Forty.
The struggle to change woman’s legal status has been particularly long and hard, and is still in progress. This cause owes much to Mlle. Maria Chéliga, a Pole, who has lived most of her life in Paris, and by her essays, lectures, stories, and plays has awakened public sympathy; and to Mlle. Jeanne Schmahl, editor of “L’Avant Courrière,” who succeeded after many years of effort in getting a bill through the Chamber of Deputies giving to married women the control of their own earnings. At first it failed in the Senate. Undaunted, she worked for eleven years more until, in 1907, she wrested from an unwilling Senate the vote in favor of the bill. For the last five years, therefore, a married woman has been able to spend what she earns, and to have her own bank-account. Within the last four years women at the head of large business houses have been able to vote for the judges of the tribunals of commerce, and thus see that their business interests are not unfairly dealt with by this powerful body. Women teachers have for some time been allowed to vote for the members of the board of education, though women are not eligible for office in either of these bodies. A married woman can now testify, and act as a witness in legal documents. She still has no voice in the family council, a vital institution in France; and if she invests her earnings in furniture or other portable property, these possessions belong to the husband.
Photograph by Henri Manuel
JEAN BERTHEROY (MME. LE BARILLIER)
Poet and historical novelist.
Photograph by Henri Manuel
MME. HENRI DE REGNIER
(GÉRARD D’HOUVILLE)
Poet and novelist.
Photograph by Ogerau
MME. SÉVÉRINE
A fervent and eloquent
public speaker, whose
conférences at the
Odéon are a feature
of Parisian life.
Photograph by Nadar
JUDITH GAUTIER
Daughter of Théophile Gautier.
Photograph by Boisonnas and Tapouler
MARCELLE TINAYRE
Author of “La Maison du Péché.”
Another sign of the times is the ever-present discussion over the education and training of the jeune fille. Thirty years ago there was not a public school for girls in the country. To-day there are many, though five for the whole of Paris seems insufficient. The inadequate curriculum is a constant bone of contention, and has already been much widened and strengthened in both state and Catholic schools to meet the demand for vocational training. The jeune fille is gaining slowly in independence, and we find her in novels, spoken of as looking forward quite naturally to activities and spheres of usefulness outside of, as well as within the home. “A whole woman is too much for a man,” one heroine declares.
Owing to the gap left by the nuns’ departure, we find one important movement of humanitarian interest in the attempts to reorganize and strengthen the profession of nursing. It had been left either to the sisters, who were not always as modern in their methods as could be desired, or to an outside class of Sairey Gamps, lower in intelligence and decency than domestic servants. Now they are trying to interest girls of the better classes in the profession, founding training-schools and studying American methods.
The fact that the international professional-women’s club of London, the Lyceum, has now a branch in Paris, and that there are many other women’s clubs, is significant. Till recently the club movement has found no response in France. The woman has been too much occupied in her own household, too much claimed by an army of relatives, to be drawn outside by clubs or anything else for the sake of her own development. Then, again, the Frenchwoman of leisure and ability has been content with her own lot and oblivious of her duty to her less fortunate sisters. She has therefore not felt the need of united effort through club organization for a common humanitarian cause. And even when she has felt this call of duty, she has always shown an astonishing lack of appreciation of the value of system and organization for attaining the desired results. Sixty years ago the feminist pioneers might have succeeded if their efforts had not been scattered and individual. Indeed, even now French feminism gives one an impression of ununified restlessness. That there is now a “club movement,” therefore, shows that at last there is in France desire for individual development, a sense of duty to one’s neighbor, and an appreciation of the value of organization. There are still countless activities that American women are habitually engaged in—municipal improvement, efforts to improve labor conditions, child-labor laws, social settlements, etc.—that have not yet reached France to a noticeable extent. But now that a beginning has been made, we shall look for all these and more.
Marked as is this general leavening of the lump, art and literature show the most complete conquest. The art prizes are all open to women, and at one time or another most of them have been won by women. To say nothing of their success in painting, sculpture, and architecture, women absolutely own the field in illustrating, arts-and-crafts work and in making innumerable small art objects. They also nearly monopolize literature: in essays, poetry, novels, journalism, their name is legion, their influence unbounded.
Journalism in France is an influential literary profession, with strong leaders that no other country can surpass. Women hold responsible positions on the staff of most of the leading French reviews, and contribute an astonishing number of articles, generally under men’s names. Beginning with Mme. Juliette Adam, the line is unbroken. She was the last of the old school, the first of the new, wielding high political influence at first through her salon, then through the pages of the “Nouvelle Révue,” which she founded in 1879. She also wrote novels, essays, and reminiscences. Mme. Sévérine, a fervent and eloquent public speaker, with rather a permanent instinct for revolt, shouts her war-cry in the “Echo de Paris.” The “Révue des Deux-Mondes” and the “Journal des Débats” include on their staff, among other women, Mme. Arvède Barine. Three times has the Academy crowned a work of hers, and she wears the cross of the Legion of Honor, as did Mme. Thérèse Bentzon, who died five years ago. Mme. Blanc, as she was better known, was on the staff of these two periodicals. This estimable woman also wrote novels and essays, some crowned by the Academy. She was especially loved in America, to which she made several visits, because she was the most faithful interpreter to the French of American literature, social customs, and educational methods. She was an ardent Roman Catholic. Mlle. Maria Martin edits the “Journal des Femmes,” and Marguérite Durand, “Les Nouvelles.” The latter is perhaps the most popular woman in France, and charmingly and essentially feminine.
Photograph by Eug. Pirou
MME. PEYREBRUNE
Novelist and poet.
Photograph by Chéri-Rousseau
YVONNE SARCEY
Writer and feminist.
Photograph by Ogerau
MME. ADAM (JULIETTE LAMBER)
Founder of the “Nouvelle Révue.”
One of the most influential of
modern Frenchwomen.
Photograph by Henri Manuel
MME. LUCIE DELARUS-MARDRUS
Dramatist and poet.
Photograph by Chéri-Rousseau
MME. LUCIE FÉLIX-FAURE GOYAU
Daughter of Félix Faure.
Novelists and poets have much in common. They are rather too apt to be feminists of most advanced type, drowned in a noxious wave of free-thinking, swinging too far in their revolt, and disregarding moral laws.
GEORGETTE LEBLANC MAETERLINCK, ACTRESS, SINGER, AND WRITER; THE WIFE OF MAURICE MAETERLINCK
This epidemic of free-thinking seems to be most evident in the upper classes, leaving the women of the bourgeoisie untouched. But perhaps all this is only the fledgling trying its wings, a phase of development, an ugly stage of self-consciousness, which the French temperament, essentially one of harmony, will sooner or later adjust. In poets this characteristic manifests itself in a tendency to reveal without restraint the inmost secrets of their woman’s soul. Mme. de Noailles, though admitted by men critics to be in the first rank, is no exception. She is also a novelist and is on the staff of the “Révue des Deux-Mondes.” Gérard d’Houville is another poet as well as novelist; and Lucie Delarus-Mardrus another, seeking unusual and exotic effects by travels in Eastern lands. The novelists confine their plots for the most part to studies of feminists. Thus, Marcelle Tinayre’s “La Rebelle” is a beautiful young journalist; her heroine in “Hellé” is a charming example of the noblest type of emancipated young womanhood; Colette Yver’s “Les Dames du Palais” deals with women lawyers and the divorce question; her “Princesses de Science” takes up scientific women. Gabriel Réval’s “Ruban de Venus” shows us artists; and women interested in sociological questions are the heroines of Renée and Tony d’Ulmès. But the inevitable underlying theme of them all is the irresistibility of passion, “the impossibility of woman’s escaping the brutal laws of her own temperament,” as one commentator expresses it. Moreover, the heroines are all selfish in their feminism; they are in search of their individual happiness.
Of the novelists and essayists, more than a passing word should be given to Marcelle Tinayre, conceded by men critics to be the most vigorous and virile of women writers, and even classed by one above George Sand. Her works have been crowned by the Academy, and she has won the cross of the Legion of Honor. Daniel Lesueur and Mme. Peyrebrune are both important, and have been distinguished with many honors. Mme. Maeterlinck is opera-singer, essayist, and lecturer, as well as novelist. Jeanne Bertheroy and Judith Gautier, daughter of Théophile Gautier, are famous, as are also Mme. Dieulafoy and Mme. Félix-Faure Goyau, daughter of the former president of the republic. Colette Yver, with her “Princesses de Science,” was the first to win the prize offered by the woman’s paper, “La Vie Heureuse.” (This is the prize that was awarded to the seamstress Marguérite Audoux for “Marie Claire.”) Pierre de Coulevain, remarkably cosmopolitan, and with a wonderfully wide point of view, is read more by foreigners than by the French. Mme. Yvonne Sarcey is exceptional in appealing to a sense of duty as the controlling force in life.
Much as we should like to linger over this long literary list, we must pass on to other topics. In the matter of the suffrage, progress is not so marked. Small suffrage societies here and there have existed for twenty-five years, but the National French Woman’s Suffrage Association was formed only three years ago. It has converted many teachers and employees of the post, telegraph, and telephone service, but has not made any impression on the women of the working-classes. In 1911 it had a membership of 3000 out of a total female population of 20,000,000. So it can be seen that the suffrage movement in France is still in its swaddling-clothes. The most encouraging thing for the suffrage supporters is the number of “hommes-femmes”; that is, influential men who give devoted service to the suffrage cause. We have already spoken of the broad-minded men who have done much to educate public opinion to more enlightened views on women. They generally go further still, and are suffragists. About three years ago they formed a men’s association, called “The Voters’ League for Woman Suffrage,” which counts among its members two senators and nine deputies. This league holds itself in readiness to push forward whatever legislative measures it considers worth while. It has been working on a bill for women’s vote in municipal elections, and it is stated as a possibility that it may be passed. Socialists also favor the suffrage, both because from the anti-reactionary nature of their doctrines they must, to be consistent, and because they want the women’s vote. But their help is of little practical value, for the labor party and the unions control the socialist party, and these two powerful organizations are bitter and formidable enemies of women’s entrance into the economic and political field. Opposition is strong from the politicians in power. Having brought about the separation of church and state seven years ago, they fear that all the old clerical question, which has been the cause of many years of most bitter wrangling, would be reopened by the women at the first opportunity, under the instigation of the priests. It is asserted, moreover, that there is no decided Catholic opposition, as such, to woman suffrage.
It must have become evident from the foregoing pages, however, that feminism in France is not a matter of the suffrage. There have been other conquests to make, in the realm of thought rather than action; old prejudices, old traditions to be removed, rights of moral and intellectual equality to be established. Indeed, French feminism can well be defined as “a state of mind, not yet crystallized into aggressive agitation for reform.” After all, in the last analysis, we see that for the realization of the feminist ideals must come, and is coming, a change in man—in his moral standards, in his attitude toward women, in his whole Latin conception of the social basis of society. Olive Schreiner says that the new woman is accompanied by the new man, or there would be no new woman. We see this development in France to-day. Says Marcel Prévost: “The new college youth cares more for sport, is more robust physically and is more healthy-minded. He is less sentimental, more athletic; he does not think of woman.” In this one statement lies more hope for the ultimate complete emancipation of woman than in all her literary and professional achievements.
The newer type of Frenchwoman, breaking away from tradition, strong-willed, earnest, Maeterlinck is striving to depict in his later heroines, like Aglavaine and Ariane. His talented wife thus interprets them for us:
Apparently vainglorious, almost brazen, free, and unsubjected, marching in the light of day, without faith or principle, we are in reality the submissive slaves of to-morrow. Beneath our songs of gladness rises a sorrowful prayer, which no one hears. No one understands our obscure duty. Sprung from the present, we are daughters of the future, and it is but natural that the moment which created us should distinguish us but imperfectly. To hasten our work, would that men might understand us better, fear us less. Let them learn that for centuries and throughout the ages, there has been but one divine woman, lover, mother, sister. If at the present moment we appear different, rebellious, it is only that we may one day offer them stronger companions and nearer to perfection. For centuries men hailed in us a beauty that was all effacement. The women who charm the most in the past appear like those frescoes that old walls still offer to our eyes half-discolored, pale, ideal, frozen in contemplative attitude, with lilies in their hands. An abyss seems to separate these Griseldas from the Aglavaines and Arianes. And yet these two are loving handmaids of the future.... It is customary to say that woman, influenced by man, perfects herself according to his ideal. But to-day, grown clearer-sighted, she seems to look over the shoulder of her mate, and perceive what he does not yet descry on the horizon.
