Louise Michel quotes about her early life and revolution

“No one could have escaped being a poet in this country of Champagne and Lorraine, where the very winds sang Germanic war chants and songs of love and rebellion.”

“My life has been composed of two very distinct parts that form a complete contrast. The first was made up of dreams and study; the second of events, as if the aspirations of the calm period came alive during the period of struggle.”

“I used to listen at the same time to my Voltairian grandparents and my exalted Catholic aunt. Moved by strange dreams, I searched the way a bewildered compass needle looks for north in a fierce storm.”

“I was tall, skinny, dishevelled, wild, brazen, sunburned, and often decorated with torn clothing held together with pins… I was amused at people finding me ugly, although my poor mother sometimes took offence at it.”

“In spite of the five styles of writing taught at Vroncourt, and the beautiful English script I learnt at teacher-training courses at Chaumont, I returned… to the style I used at home. I rolled my letters, dishevelled my words, and let my handwriting change as my thoughts changed. It makes my handwriting very difficult to imitate.”

“People are always taunting me for never speaking of love. I have to go back to those hours when young women are just learning to dream. From the pages of old books read in the dawn of life many songs of love escape, and within those pages … among the sons of Gaul, among the barbarians, she chooses the bravest of the brave. She can look into the far past at the men of the north, the men of Ghilde who fought for freedom and who used to pour three cups of wine on the flagstones – one for the dead, another for their ancestors and a third for the brave. The Bagaudes, who died in their flaming tower, the poets, the troubadors, the great leaders of robber bands who stole from the rich bandit in the manor to give to the miserable beggar in his thatched cottage – those are my loves. I couldn’t be faithful to only one of those loves; there are too many of them. From the devil to Mandrin, from Faust to Saint-Just, how many phantoms made me dream when I was a child!”

“My friend Théophile Ferré told me I was consecrated to the Revolution, and it was true. All of us were its fanatics.”

“People say I’m brave. Not really. There is no heroism: people are simply entranced by events. What happens is that in the face of danger my perceptions are submerged in my artistic sense, which is seized and charmed. Tableaus of the dangers overwhelm my thoughts, and the horrors of the struggle become poetry.”