Cantinières, or female canteen keepers, were a unique feature of the
French army, and the American historian Thomas Cardoza has described the Second
Empire (1852-1870) as their “Golden Age”.[1]
It was the period in which the cantinière, like the Zouaves,
caught the imagination of the French and European public alike – their pretty
uniforms coupled with implied good looks as well as an almost saintly
disposition led them to appear in numerous contemporary printed material, notably
cheap prints and pamphlets.[2]
This chapter will study the cantinières thematically, understanding
their popular perception through media such as the theatre and commercial
images. Comparisons between the
treatment and role of women in the British and French armies will be discussed
as will the relationship between the cantinières and British soldiers.
Finally, the French view of the cantinières, as well as the respect
these women engendered on the battlefield will be examined.
Development of the Cantinière system
Women soldiers on the ration-strength of a battalion were a
tradition in the French Army that dated back to 1657.[3] There were two classes of women who served
the army: blanchisseuses who were the washerwomen, and vivandières
who were licensed sutlers.
Women in the Second Empire were organised by
regulations of the July Monarchy (1830-1848). From 14th April 1832
each Infantry Battalion was allowed four vivandière-blanchisseuses.[4]
The regiments of the Imperial Guard were allowed up to ten cantinières.[5]
These ‘useful and necessary’ women were nominated to serve their battalion by
the regimental colonel and were to be of ‘good virtue and morals’.[6]
In barracks the vivandière-blanchisseuse was to run the canteen and do
the laundry of the officers and NCOs, and on campaign to act as a victualler
providing extra foodstuffs and necessities (as well as comforts) for her
battalion.[7]
The Royal Ordnance of 4th May 1832 clarified that of 14th
April, and laid out in detail the duties and responsibilities of the vivandière-blanchisseuse.[8]
Vivandières were appointed at Regimental level by their Administrative
Councils who granted their Patentes and also provided their clothing and
rations.[9]
Vivandières were to wear an oval plate, stamped in brass which bore their
unique registration number, the Division or Regiment to which they were
attached and number of their Patente which they were to carry at all
times.[10] They were originally forbidden from wearing
uniforms because they were civil not military employees of the Ministry of War,
but the Royal Ordnance of 4th March 1843 granted vivandière-blanchisseuses
a regulation uniform, the same or similar to the regiment to which they were
attached.[11] In 1852 the
terms vivandière and vivandière-blanchisseuse were officially
abolished and replaced by cantinière.[12]
This did not stop British observers invariably describing cantinières as
vivandières throughout the duration of the Crimean war.
Cantinières and popular
culture.
Popular culture demanded, or perhaps required, that cantinières
were all young, pretty and buxom. The reality, however, was the opposite: these
women were chosen to be cantinières not for their looks but for their
hardiness on campaign, and perhaps also to provide a matronly figure to young
soldiers and prevent their ‘temptation’.[13] Such
was the public fascination with these women that they even appeared on the
stage.[14]
Furthermore, such was the public appeal of these women, embellished by their
portrayal in popular culture, and accounts of their acts of bravery and
military service, that they were a positive contribution towards women's rights
in France.[15]
As a result cantinières became a popular subject for
theatricals and entertainment. The most popular depiction of the cantinière
was through the opera La Vivandière by Donzietti. The title was a
deliberate reference to an earlier title for the cantinière. It was
first performed in Paris at the Opéra Comique as La Fille du Régiment
in 1840 before going to London in 1844 as ‘Josephine or the Daughter of War’.[16]
The opera received great public acclaim in France and in Britain.[17]
The most famous actress to perform the female lead for a London audience was
the Swedish singer, Jenny Lind, one of the prettiest and most celebrated
singers of the period.[18] As noted earlier, like most popular media,
the opera defined cantinières in the public imagination as young, brave
and pretty.[19] A comic opera called La Vivandière by
Mademoiselle Cerito was premiered in Paris 1844 and transferred to London in
the same year.[20] A ballet La
Vivandière was first produced in Paris in 1844 and later performed in
London and the provinces.[21]
There was also a quadrille dance called the ‘Vivandière’ that was also
extremely popular,[22]
and Vivandière was the name of a St Leger winning race-horse.
Unsurprisingly the opera La Vivandière received a popular revival in
London at the outbreak of war in 1854, because of the interest aroused by
Britain’s new allies.[23] These
stage performances, whilst not an accurate portrayal of the life of a cantinière,
helped to cement the romantic beau ideal of the cantinière and no
doubt helped in their recruitment.[24]
In Britain before the Crimean war, cantinières were
already considered a unique and beneficial feature of the French army.[25] One military commentator thought that the
presence of the cantinières was beneficial to the troops on service,
but, because soldiers had to rely on the cantinière to supplement their
rations, that there must be a fault with the French army commissariat.[26]
More conservative (political and religious) observers thought the presence of
women on the battlefield immoral,[27]
and the cantinières ‘flauntingly dressed’.[28]
A. W. Kinglake was under the erroneous impression that cantinières were
prostitutes or could procure them.[29]
Cantinières were very frequently depicted in colour prints of the
French army, especially those of Francois Hippolyte Lalaisse in his famous
series The French Army and its Cantinières published in 1859[30]
and in The French Army and the Imperial Guard (1853-1860).[31]
It was Lalaisse who did the most to popularise the cantinière, showing
them always in full dress uniform, the majority being young, shapely, often
with their husbands and children, looking lovingly at each other. Lalaisse was often careful to show the cantinières
in a very feminine role, as a homemaker, parent, cook or nurse rather than in
her more masculine roles of canteen-keeper or fighter. The Parisian print maker
Martinet produced a volume of coloured prints depicting cantinières from
each regiment of the army,[32]
as did de Moraine of Paris.[33]
Cantinières also featured prominently in the prints of de Valmont of
Paris,[34]
and Sinnett.[35] The toy
soldier manufacturers Messrs. Pellerin of Paris and Silbermann of Strasbourg
produced cardboard cut-out toy soldiers depicting cantinières from every
regiment of the French army.[36]
The Livret d’or des Cantinières enthused over the cantinières’
individual acts of heroism and bravery, often thought the equal of or greater
than that of their male colleagues. Their bravery and life stories appeared in
historical fiction, such as the writing of Ernest Capendu.[37]
Léon Gozlon, Edouard La Barre Duparcq and others extolled their ‘French’
virtues and fighting spirit immediately after the fall of the Second Empire
when France needed inspiring images to unite its people.[38] The fictional heroine cantinière,
Victorine Charlemagne fulfilled a similar function during the troubled years
1848-1852.[39] Capitaine
Auguste Richard, a French army moralist, reformer and noted critic of the cantinières,
wrote their definitive history in 1897,[40]
when the existence of cantinières in the French army was being hotly debated.[41]
The image of a cantinière took on a political role as well, being linked
to the 1st Empire, thus appearing in broadsheets and posters of the Bonapartists
during the Revolution of 1848.[42]
Roger Fenton’s famous
posed photographs of a cantinière of the Zouaves at Sebastopol is
part of the idealised image d’epinal; showing a pretty young woman in a
smart military uniform performing the role not of a barmaid or fighter (which
many cantinières were) but of a nurse, fulfilling the need of a growing
middle-class ideal of women’s roles in society and the family. Ironically, as a
cantinière of the Zouaves, his subject was exactly the type of
woman who was more likely to be found running a canteen or fighting in the
ranks than tending to the sick.
The Cantinières and British Army wives
In direct contrast to the methode of the French army
of employing women, the British army considered women a drain on limited army
resources and Major John Patterson believed that married men had no place in
the army.[43] In
addition, unlike French cantinières, it was considered immoral for women
to be employed by the army in any capacity, even that of a washerwoman.[44] Despite the regulations, however, many
regiments found that having the wives cook and do the laundry for the men was
more necessary on campaign than sticking to the letter of the regulations.[45]
These were sentiments that echoed the French regulations for cantinières,
which described their duties as both ‘useful, and necessary’.[46]
Furthermore, unlike cantinières who drew a full ration, British army
wives were only entitled to half-rations and did not have separate living
quarters away from the men.[47]
Marianne Young thought there was an ‘astonishingly lack of gallantry’ on the
part of the British military authorities in sending wives to war, a mistake
compounded by the lack of any provision for them.[48]
The number of women the British army took on campaign was ultimately higher
than the French – four per company during wartime – and represented a
considerable tail of non-combatants.[49]
French cantinières and their children were also entitled to treatment in
military hospitals, unlike the British wives and children who were denied such
treatment both during the Crimean War and after.[50]
Despite their presence in the war zone, officially children were excluded from
the British army, and therefore could not be treated. Meanwhile the French army
had its system of Enfants de Troupe, whereby up to twenty-two children
(below the age of 14) per regiment could receive rations, education and even
pay.[51]
British army wives did not come under any form of military
discipline – unlike the cantinières who if found guilty of a crime were
punished according to the French Military Code, as were their husbands.[52]
French cantinières were also eligible for pensions (based on their
husband’s service, not their own) and medals as rewards for their service,
unlike British wives, despite many British colonels recommending the wives in
their regiments for medals, and in some instances considering them more worthy
of decorations than any of the men under their command.[53]
Considerable debate raged in the domestic and military press over army wives
during the early 1850s: The radical Morning Chronicle considered the
treatment of army wives as ‘brutish’ and inhuman, whilst the United Services
Gazette in 1854 argued that British army wives, based on comparison with
the cantinières, should become more useful to their unit by being able
to be employed as a washerwomen and put under some form of military discipline
so that she ‘may become a blessing’ to her regiment and ‘learn to respect
herself and to become to the utmost of her power a useful member of the
military community’.[54]
Similarly, the cantinières contrasted strongly with the traditional view
of army wives as lazy drunkards; army wives should be subject to a strict
process of selection as the cantinières were, thus making them more
useful to their unit. [55] The domestic
press considered the French armies treatment of women to be a model and that
British army wives were a victim of official indifference and neglect.[56]
Provision for married quarters in the British army was erratic, as was
schooling for any children and medical care; the main excuse for lack of
provision being its cost.[57]
Appearance
During the Crimean War, the French cantinières
attracted considerable comment from British soldiers through their wearing of
uniforms, and particularly trousers. British soldiers in the Crimea were quite
taken by the cantinières; because they were the only women they had seen
other than the few bedraggled army wives, and because the cantinières
were quite obviously better off than British army wives.[58] Despite most of them being middle aged,
experienced campaigners, most if not all cantinières were described as
‘perfect’ specimens of womanhood, and many British soldiers declared their love
for them. Most cantinières ‘caused a great sensation’ and ‘her Bloomer
costume got quite a crowd round her.’[59] One soldier writing from Varna described
a cantinière thus: ‘...with her glazed hat, bound with tricoloured
ribbon, stuck coquettishly on the side of her head, her tunic showing a very
pretty waist, and her pantaloons with a double red stripe, she was the most
astonishing sight.’[60] In direct contrast to the cantinières
were the British army wives.[61] One British rifleman was astonished to see
A troop of soldiers’ wives, certainly in a most indecent
plight, so far as dress and appearance went, and who, walking along the streets
and darting into shops and rummaging their contents, were the unconscious
object of disgust.[62]
British army wives, from their lack of pay, discipline and
serviceable attire were becoming ‘quite savage-like and unfit for decent
society’.[63] Many other
soldiers and newspaper editors agreed about the ‘plight’ of the British army
wives, so much so that the ‘Central Association for the Aid of the Wives and
Families Ordered to the East’ was established in London to improve their lot.[64]
Religious commentators considered that it was totally immoral for women to go
to war, but if a wife had to follow her husband, then she should be looked
after to an even higher standard than her husband, reflecting her ‘delicate’
constitution. Furthermore caring for the wives prevented a collapse in army
morals as ‘if the wife were degraded, the degradation of the husband would soon
follow.’[65]
The cantinières, by contrast to British army wives,
always had:
a decent
soldier-like dress on, and being compelled to wear it, and keep themselves
tidy, and getting…pay and being kept under discipline and in good order. Them’s
regimental women for you![66]
The ‘bloomerised dress’ of the cantinières was
considered a singular advantage over the civilian dress worn by the British
wives who accompanied the army:
Their smart glazed hats and cockade, their blue frock and
crimson pants, their boots and spurs, their lace and regimental facings and
little swords, in some instances, and their men's seat on horseback shows much
campaigning advantage over the once fine bonnets and draggle-tails of our
rather uncomfortable female campaigners. The French ladies have decidedly the
best of it.[67]
Colonel George Bell (1st Royals) thought that
soldiers’ wives were ‘much in everyone’s way’ and a useless encumbrance
‘straggling along in the mud’, compared to the energetic, ‘useful and smart’ cantinières
of the French army.[68]
The editor of the Patriotic Fund Journal thought the cantinières
were a refreshing ‘gleam of sunshine’ amidst all the dirt and chaos of the
Siege of Sebastopol. They were believed to set an enviable standard of
cheerfulness, good heart, and bravery to male soldiers, caring little for the
cold, mud or shells.[69]
One commentator believed that ‘truly dress is a great improver of persons’, and
that the uniform of a cantinière transformed a rather uncouth ‘lady of
the sabots’ into the most dashing and military of personages.[70] The cantinières were of a ‘coquettish
smartness’ despite many of them being perhaps middle aged.[71]
Dr David Greig thought that the cantinières ‘were generally good-looking
and their dresses ‘set them off to great advantage’ in great contrast to
British army wives.[72]
Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander (14th Regiment)
believed that British army wives should be uniformed and put under military
discipline as cantinières were. He felt that the British army wives were
badly done by and their civilian dress was useless in the field.[73]
The smart uniforms, military discipline and importance given to them by
marching in the ceremonial tête de colonne with the Eagle gave the cantinières
their own unique esprit de corps. Described as the ‘daughters of the regiment’
their often-extravagant parade uniforms made them the pride and honour of their
regiments.[74] Cantinières
who encountered British army wives thought them an ‘insult… to her sex’.[75] British wives were thought to be
‘astonished’ and wonder ‘at the manly costume of the useful cantinières,
who…are treated with equal courtesy by officers and men.’[76]The
dress of the cantinières also presented a complete contrast to the
uniforms issued to the British armies’ female nurses: whilst the uniform of the
cantinière presented her as a soldier and exaggerated her femininity,
the British uniforms were designed to de-sexualise.[77] So taken was Colonel Clayton of the 1st
Lancashire Militia that he organised cantinières in his regiment in
honour of their ‘brave’ French allies.[78]
Their appearance ‘neatly attired in the costume of the regiment, marching…at
the head of the Grenadier Company’ added ‘brilliance’ to the military spectacle
attracting ‘no small share of attention’.[79]
According to Marianne Young, a Mrs O’Flanaghan of the 88th Regiment
adopted a form of dress similar to that of a cantinière to good effect.[80]
Other British observers, however, were shocked not only by women in a war zone,
but by the immorality of women wearing trousers and riding their horses
astride.[81] During the
balls held by the French army in spring 1855, the presence of cantinières
and their wearing of trousers outraged many British officers’ wives, because
respectable women did not wear trousers.[82] Cantinières were unique in
European society by wearing trousers at a time when such cross-gender dressing
was illegal in many countries, including France.[83]
Whilst the beau ideal of the cantinière was a
coquettish, very shapely young woman, the actual reality, judging from
photographs, was almost the opposite: from contemporary photographs the
majority of cantinières appear matronly. Mesdames Jouillousse and Perrin of the 2nd Grenadiers à Pied
de la Garde Impériale present a severely corseted and crinolined
appearance,[84] whilst
Madame Bourselet can only be described as fearsome.[85]
Captain Charles Thoumas of the 7th Artillery described his batteries' cantinière
as the ‘very illegitimate and very ugly wife of the Corporal-Quartermaster’ and
a cantinière of the Chasseurs à Pied of the Imperial Guard as
having the ‘voice of a Corporal of Engineers’.[86]
One cantinière of the 2nd Zouaves, ‘Mother’ Marie
Monteil was aged at least 60 by the outbreak of the Crimean War, having served
in the Chasseurs of the Imperial Guard during the 1812 campaign and been
with the Zouaves from the formation of the first battalion in 1830.[87]
Marianne Young asserts that most cantinières
had the figure and uniform which showed they were experienced soldiers, neither
very young or very pretty but ‘...of a carriage, figure and constitution
suitable both for the due effect of her costume, and the due performance of her
required duties.’[88]
Punch poked fun at the British soldier’s unquestioning belief in the beauty
of the cantinières based solely upon popular culture: ‘sentimentality
receives a frightful smash when the real object makes her appearance, with a
face full of wrinkles…and a mouth full of French slang of the least recherché
character’.[89]
Indeed there was an old-soldiers idiom that the quality of wine was the
inverse of the quality of the cantinières’ face: pretty cantinières
found it easy to run a business whereas more homely ladies had to have higher
quality victuals to compete.[90] A
similar view was taken by the Hibernian Magazine, that the cantinière
was probably not young and graceful but a welcome face, experienced campaigner
and shrewd businesswoman who was therefore of more use on campaign than the
pretty young things of popular imagination.[91] In
the Crimean War many cantinières went out of their way retain their
feminine figure and smart uniform, in direct contrast to the bedraggled British
army wives. Many civilian merchants made a good living from solely selling
corsets and under garments to cantinières during the Siege of
Sebastopol.[92]
Relations with British Soldiers.
The cantinières and their canteens were considered
invaluable by British soldiers in supplementing the army rations and also in
providing a space for rest and relaxation that they did not have:
[The canteen] was at once a restaurant, a
spirit-shop, a café, a brewery and a boarding house. It is here that the soldiers and the officers come at times to
drink their morning drop; the volunteer eats there a portion of the money his
family send him; the man of good appetite finds a cheap supplement to his
rations; idlers go there to play a hand of cards; and lastly, at the canteen,
the NCOs have their mess.[93]
The canteen became the family table of a
Battalion for the NCOs at least, and for the remainder of the Battalion the cantinières
became a symbolic mother, and much needed female contact in an army when few
men were allowed to marry. Thus, the cantinière
performed numerous female roles of a mother, sister, wife, nurse and confidante;
a role which could only ever be partially filled by British army wives.[94] Most cantinières were married to long
serving career soldiers. Her presence and the canteen were an important part of
the bonding process and forming of a sense of Battalion “Family”, which was
lacking in the contemporary British army. This was further reinforced as many,
if not all, daughters of the union between a cantinière and a
career-soldier often became a cantinière themselves, effectively
inheriting the family business, whilst sons became enfants de troupe.[95]
The British army adopted this notion of the regiment ‘as family’ after the
Crimean War, where the regiment provided all the needs and comforts an officer
or private would need during their military career. Institutions such as the
canteen and providing for the women and children – children who, like the
French enfants de troupe, were ‘army born and bred’ - were borrowed from
the French.[96]
Cantinières were thought to have a ‘smile for everyone, and a joke or
box on the ear’ as well as a flirtatious wink for those she favoured or found
attractive.[97] Colonel
Richard Farren (47th Regiment) thought that the cantinières ‘afforded
especially delight’ to his men and that they frequently patronised the French
canteens.[98] Farren was
mistaken, however, in his belief that the cantinières were the servants
of an NCO: the NCOs had a mess room in the canteen and the cantinières
provided two meals a day for them, for 13 sous per day. Cantinières
were officially to be legally married to a private or corporal in her battalion
but not to an NCO to avoid the NCOs setting up ‘petty tyrannies’ forcing new
recruits to buy articles from their wives.[99]
Farren was also mistaken in his belief that the French government covered the
cost of moving the cantinières’ stores, when it was to be covered by the
cantinières themselves who had to buy their own horses and carts and maintain
them at their own cost.[100]
The cantinières and their canteens proved very popular
to British soldiers as a place to fraternize and to buy much needed warm food
and alcohol, which was not available in the British camp.[101]
The canteen of the 2nd Zouaves was a ‘depot of luxury’ which
was frequented by NCOs and men of the Brigade of Guards, but never its
officers.[102] In fact
the French canteens were so popular that they were believed to cause a
high-level of drunkenness and illness amongst British soldiers.[103] French officers similarly disapproved of the
intemperance of British troops.[104] To remedy the drunkenness, British soldiers
were at first prohibited from visiting French canteens. Later, the pay of
British soldiers was stopped for several months so that they could not spend
their pay at the canteens.[105]
That the canteens, and by extension the cantinières, fuelled drunkenness
and alcoholism amongst French soldiers was the main argument to abolish them in
the 3rd Republic.[106]
British observers noted how the cantinières were
better able to trade with the locals in Turkey and Bulgaria, because they were
women and therefore not threatening, unlike male soldiers. Cantinières
were also considered to be better at finding edibles than men. To this end
several regiments including the 30th Foot tried to emulate the
French system: they sent the wives mounted on ponies to forage and to trade
with the locals, meeting with more success than when they had sent male
soldiers.[107] Sending the women to forage also freed up
men for more military duties. Not only were cantinières better able to trade
with the locals, but, because their goods were inspected, the goods they had on
sale were thought to be infinitely superior to anything available from local
merchants or the ‘vagabond’ sutlers who followed the British army. French colonels were responsible for checking the quality of and setting
prices of the goods cantinières sold, ensuring that they were fair and
in line with local prices, but the price of tobacco was controlled by the War
Ministry.[108] Because they were believed to be part of the army,[109]
cantinières were also thought to be honest in all their dealings, unlike
civilian merchants or the locals.[110]
The best customers the cantinières had were British soldiers because
they had no equivalent system[111]
and they had money to spend, unlike their poorly paid French allies.[112]
Indeed, as the siege of Sebastopol became more drawn-out, however, the
view amongst British soldiers changed: cantinières were considered to be
making huge profit from the extortionate prices they charged British but not French soldiers, leading
to a sense of resentment. French soldiers also noted the high prices charged by
the cantinières and thought them immoral, having a monopoly and making
money from hard-worked soldiers.[113]
Bravery and Respect.
The cantinières were universally respected by British
officers and other ranks alike, not only from their work in the barracks but
their role on campaign – that of a nurse in treating the sick and wounded on
the battlefield – and their bravery.[114] The cantinière of the 74th
Line Infantry, Madame Fayau was even presented to the Empress Eugénie for her
bravery and devotion in the field.[115]
Cantinières were considered utterly selfless in foraging for her unit
and looking after its sick and wounded.
No French or British soldier who came to her was thought to go thirsty
or hungry, the cantinières often refusing payment.[116]
The heroism of the cantinière on the battlefield was exemplified in
sacrificing her own safety and life for others: ‘Such an act would have been
considered worthy of a Hero; how much more praise does a young and generous
female deserve who performs such a deed?’[117] To many, ‘She indeed
appeared to be like an Angel of Mercy, bearing all the perils and dangers that surrounded her.’[118] Indeed, in many cases they were braver and perhaps more stoic
than most male soldiers. One British
Lieutenant-Colonel thought that they
…seemed to possess great control over her feelings; for,
whereas a woman can scarcely be expected to see with indifference even a single
lover going to battle, this young lady beheld with equanimity a whole regiment
of admirers advancing to deadly conflict.[119]
A. W. Kinglake described the cantinières leading
their battalions up to the trenches before storming the ‘White Works’ as
being ‘fearless, calm pride…riding
serenely’, embodying the ‘spirit of war’ and nobility of France. She was a
‘priestess…bringing up human sacrifices …nobly leading her sons into action’.
To Kinglake, the cantinières represented something noble and chivalric
about the French army, possessing as much bravery and self-control as any male
soldier: ‘With infinite grace and composure she led her men down to the ravine
to meet the fortune of war.’[120]
Conclusion
The image of the cantinière, with her
coquettish uniform and small polished barrel of spirits (tonnelet) were
well known in popular culture in France and Britain prior to the Crimean War,
an image cemented in the public imagination through the performance of Jenny
Lind in the opera La Vivandière and cheap commercial prints.
[1] T. Cardoza, Intrepid Women.
Cantinières and Vivandières of the French Army (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 2010), chapter 5.
[2] Ibid.
[3] L. Arnaud & P. Bonnet La Femme
sur la Champ de Bataille (Paris: 1912), p. 42
[4] V. L. J. F. Belhomme, Histoire de
l’Infanterie en France (Paris: H. Charles-Lavauzellle, 1892) vol. 5, p.
178.
[5] Ibid; L. Delpérier, La Garde Impériale du Napoléon III (Nantes: Editions du Cannonier, 2000), p.
29. The Guard had two cantinières per battalion (of which there were
four), one cantinière for the État
Major and one for the Section Hors Rang.
[6] Belhomme, Histoire de l’Infanterie,
p. 179.
[7] Bordeaux, ‘Medailles de Cantinière et de
Vivandière’, p. 319. See also Cardoza, Intrepid Women, p. 123.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Bordeaux, ‘Medailles de Cantinière et
de Vivandière’, p. 319; P. Charrié,
‘Les Insignes des Vivandières’, Soldats Napoléoniens, no. 16 (Decembre 2007), pp. 73 – 74.
[10]
Ibid.
[11]
Hennet, ‘Vivandières et Blanchisseuses’, p. 48.
[12]
Ibid.
[13]
Ibid; A. L. Dawson, French Infantry of the Crimean War (Nottingham:
Partizan Press, 2011), p. 288.
[14]
Ibid.
[15]
É. Robbe,
‘Les Cantinières, les femmes d’honneur’, Napoleon III Magazine, no. 12
(Octobre- Decembre 2010), pp. 78-81.
[16]
‘Haymarket Theatre. Donzietti’s ‘La Fille du Regiment’’, The Morning Post (7
March 1844); ‘Theatricals’, Lloyd’s Weekly London Newspaper (10 March
1844); ‘Music and Drama’, The Era (10 March 1844).
[17]
‘Haymarket Theatre. Donzietti’s ‘La Fille du Regiment’’, The Morning
Post (7 March 1844).
[18]
G. G. Foster, A Memoir of Jenny Lind (New York: Dewitt & Davenport,
1850), p. 41; Anon, Review of the Performances of Mademoiselle Jenny Lind (London:
J. & L. Dickinson, 1847), pp. 21-22.
[19]
Cardoza, Intrepid Women, pp. 119-120.
[20] ‘Her Majesty’s Theatre’, The
Morning Post (23 May 1844).
[21]
‘Easter Amusements’, The Era (18 April 1852).
[22]
‘Her Majesty’s Theatre. Great Attractions’, The Morning Post (23
May 1844).
[23]
‘St James’s Theatre’, The Morning Post (22 June 1854).
[24]
Cardoza, Intrepid Women, p. 120.
[25]
‘The Military Force of France’, Jackson’s Oxford Journal (7
November 1829).
[26]
‘Sketch of the campaign in Kostantinah in 1837’, The United Service Journal
and Naval and Military Magazine for 1839, part 2 (1839), p. 64.
[27]
‘Christian Missions to Turkey’, Evangelical Christian, vol. IX (1855),
p. 343.
[28]
Cardoza, Intrepid Women, p. 121.
[29]
G. De Gaury, Travelling Gent: the Life of Alexander Kinglake (London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972), p.
175.
[30]
H. Lalaisse, L’Armée
Francaise et ses Cantinières (Paris: G. Orengo, 1859).
[34]
De Valmont, Costumes Militaires Français (Paris: ND).
[35]
Sinnett, Les Cantinières de France (Paris: Chez Sinnett, ND).
[36]
J-M Haussadis, ‘La Gloire de la Petit Soldats’, Soldats Napoléoniens, no. 16
(Decembre 2007), pp. 59 – 71. For a list of toy soldiers by Messrs Pellerin
see http://www.culture.gouv.fr/public/mistral/joconde_fr
accessed 31 May 2011@ 20.43. For a complete iconography of the Second Empire
Commandant Sauzay, Iconographie du Costume Militaire Tome III, (Paris:
R. Chapelot et Co., 1903).
[38] L. Gozlon, La Vivandière (Paris: E.
Dentu, 1872); E. De la Barre Duparcq, les
Femmes Militaires (Paris: Aux frais de l’autour, 1873); P. & H. de
Trailles, Les Femmes de France pendant la Guerre et deux Sièges de Paris (Paris:
Hadol, 1872).
[39]
Cardoza, Intrepid Women, pp. 155-156.
[40]
Capitaine A-J-C Richard, Cantinières et Vivandières francaises (Paris:
E. Flammarion, 1897).
[41]
Cardoza, Intrepid Women, pp. 185-188.
[42]
Bibliotheque Nationale de France, Paris. Poster: ‘La Mère Napoléon
ou la Vivandière d’Austerlitz’ http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k5609329r.r=vivandiere.langEN
accessed 3 May 2011 @16.34.
[43]
Major J. Patterson, Camp and Quarters: Scenes and Impressions of
Military Life (London: Saunders & Otley, 1840), p. 114.
[44]
Rappaport, No place for Ladies, p. 20.
[45]
Ibid, p. 133.
[46]
Cardoza, Intrepid Women, p. 114.
[47]
Ibid.
[48] ‘Our Camp
in Turkey’, The New Monthly Magazine, vol. 103 (1854), p. 248.
[49]
Ibid, p. 21.
[50]
‘Naval and Military Intelligence’, The Morning Post (8 September 1856).
[51]
Dawson, French Infantry, p. 199.
[52] Ibid, p. 178.
[53]
Archives National Française
(ANF), Paris, Acc. ANFF70 Fastes de la Legion d’Honneur/Medailles St Hélène, includes requests from cantinières for
the Legion d’Honneur. See also, Cardoza, Intrepid Women, p. 1163-164;
Marquess of Angelsey, Little Hodge (London: Leo Cooper, 1971), p. 84.
Colonel Hodge described Mrs Rogers of the 4th Dragoon Guards as more
deserving of a medal than any man in his regiment.
[54] ‘Army
Wives’, The United Services Gazette (21 October 1854); The United
Services Gazette (4 November 1854); ‘The Church in the Army – No. II’, The
Morning Chronicle (25 March 1852); ‘The Church in the Army – No. IV’, The
Morning Chronicle (28 April 1852).
[55] ‘Army
Wives’, The United Services Gazette (21 October 1854); The United
Services Gazette (4 November 1854).
[56]
‘Editorial’, The Times (22 February 1854); ‘Letters to the Editor:
Soldier’s Wives and Children’, The Times (27 February 1854); ‘Letters to
the Editor: Soldier’s Wives’, The Times (7 March 1854); ‘Editorial’, The
Times (2 May 1854); ‘The wife I leave behind me’. Lloyd’s Weekly
Newspaper (26 February 1854).
[57] M. Trustam,
Women of the Regiment: Marriage and the Victorian Army (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1984), chapter 5; ‘The Church in the Army No. IV’, The
Morning Chronicle (28 April 1852).
[58]
N. Bentley, ed, Russell’s Despatches from the Crimea (London:
Panther History, 1970), p. 33.
[59] ‘Soldiers Letters’, Daily News (7
April 1855).
[60] Reynolds's Newspaper (18 June 1854).
[61]
Rappaport, No place for ladies, p. 58.
[62]
‘Pictures of the War’, Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper (25 June 1854).
[63]
Ibid.
[64]
‘Association in Aid of the Wives and Families of Soldiers Ordered to the East’,
The Times (8 March 1854); ‘Wives and Children of the Soldiers Ordered
Abroad’, The Times (8 March 1854); Rappaport, No place for Ladies, p.
26.
[65]
‘Christian Missions to Turkey’, Evangelical Christian, vol. IX (1855),
p. 343.
[66]‘Pictures
of the War’, Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper (25 June 1854).
[68] B. Stuart,
ed, Soldier’s Glory. Being ‘Rough notes of an Old Soldier’ (Tunbridge
Wells: Spellmount, 1991), p. 269.
[69]
‘The Vivandières’, Patriotic Fund Journal, vol. 1 no. 1 (1854), p. 102.
[70]
The Rambler, vol. III (1855), p.
132.
[71]
Thomasina Ross, trans, Algeria in 1845: A visit to the French possessions in
North Africa (London: Richard Bentley & Co., 1846), pp. 250 to 251.
[72]
D. Hill, ed, Letters from the Crimea. Writing home, a Dundee Doctor (Dundee:
Dundee University Press, 2010), p. 85.
[73]
Lieutenant-Colonel J. A. Alexander, Passages of the Life of a Soldier
(London: Hurst & Blackett, 1857), vol. 2, p. 90.
[74]
‘The French Expeditionary Force’, The Morning Chronicle (17 July
1854).
[75]
Ibid; ‘Our Camp in Turkey’, p. 248.
[76] ‘Our Camp
in Turkey’, p. 248.
[77]
Rappaport, No place for Ladies, pp. 104-105.
[78]
‘The First Duke’s Own’, The Lancaster Gazette (14 June 1856); ‘The
Vivandière’, Manchester Times (21 June 1855).
[79]
‘The First Duke’s Own’, The Lancaster Gazette (14 June 1856).
[80] ‘Our Camp
in Turkey’, p. 249.
[81]
Rappaport, No place for Ladies, pp. 58 and p. 187; ‘ Our Army in
the Crimea’, Daily News (8 October 1855).
[82] J. O. Baylen & A Conway, eds, Soldier-Surgeon: The Crimean War letters of Dr
Douglas A. Reid 1855-1856 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1968),
pp. 128-129.
[83] Cardoza, Intrepid Women, pp. 163-164;
Robbe, ‘Les Cantinières, les femmes d’honneur’ pp. 78-81.
[85]
Dawson, French Infantry, plate on p. 179.
[86]
General C-A Thoumas, Mes Souvenirs de Crimée 1854-1856 (Paris:
La Librairie Illustrée,
1892), p. 25 and pp. 171-172.
[87]
Lieutenant J. Spitz, Historique du 2eme Régiment des Zouaves (Oran:
Paul Perrier, 1901), pp. 77-78. ‘Vieux Mere Marie’ died in 1860 and was buried
with full military honours.
[88]
Rappaport, No place for Ladies, p.58.
[89]
‘The Romance of the Vivandière’, Punch Magazine vol. 27 (1855), p. 125.
[90]
Cardoza, Intrepid Women, p. 140.
[91]
‘Aspects of French Military Life’, The Hibernian Magazine, no. 1
(July 1864), p. 64.
[92]
Rappaport, No place for Ladies, p. 58.
[93]
‘The French Soldier’, The New Monthly Magazine, vol. 122 (1861), p. 245;
‘Contrast between the two Armies’, Reynolds’s Newspaper (25 December
1854); ‘The British Expedition’, Freeman’s Journal and Daily Commercial
Advertiser (24 May 1854).
[94]
Rappaport, No place for Ladies, p. 58.
[95]
Ibid, p. 134.
[96] Trustam, Women
of the Regiment, pp. 21-23 and pp. 68-75.
[97]
‘French Infantry Halting on the March’, Huddersfield Chronicle (27 May
1854).
[98]
QLR, Colonel R. T. Farren, Mss, Farren to wife, 29 June 1854.
[99]
‘Vivandières et Blanchisseuses’, Journal Militaire Officiel Année 1854 (1854), p.
382.
[100] Ibid; Dawson, French Infantry, pp.
176-178.
[101]
NAM, Acc. 2002-05-02, Thomas Bell, Mss, Bell to Father, 18 January 1855;
‘Letter from a Golcar Man in the Crimea’, Huddersfield Chronicle (20
January 1855), ‘French and English Soldiers’, Caledonian Mercury (1
March 1855); Hill, A Dundee Doctor, p. 85.
[102]
A. Money & G. H. Money, Sebastopol, Our Tent in the Crimea (London:
Richard Bentley, 1856), pp. 199-200.
[103]
G. C. Taylor, Journal of Adventures with the Britsih Army (London: Hurst
& Blackett, 1856), p. 301; C. Fitzherbert, ed, Henry
Clifford VC, his letters and sketches from the Crimea (London: Michael
Joseph, 1956), pp. 269-270; ‘Drunkenness in the Army’, Caledonian Mercury (26
November 1855).
[104]
E. Joppé, ‘La
Campagne de Crimée
d’après les letters
du Commandant Adrien au Capitaine Joppé’,
Carnet de la Sabretache, vol. 16 (1907), p. 223.
[105]
Fitzherbert, Henry Clifford, pp. 269-270 and p. 276; ‘French
Fraternization’, Caledonian Mercury (19 June 1854); ‘ Letter from a
Golcar Man in the Crimea’, Huddersfield Chronicle (20 January 1855).
[106]
A-J-C Richard, Livret Antialcoolique du soldat (Paris: Chapelot, 1901);
A-J-C Richard, L’armée
et les forces morales (Paris: Plon, 1902).
[107]
QLR, J. B. Patullo, Mss, Patullo to wife, 23 June 1854; ‘Our Camp in Turkey’,
p. 249.
[108]
Cardoza, Intrepid Women, p. 130.
[109]
Cantinières, despite their own belief in being soldiers (militaries)
because of wearing uniforms, were in fact civilians, being civil employees of
the ministry of war.
[110]
‘The War in the East: From our Own Correspondent’, The Morning Post (3
July 1854).
[111]
‘Our Army in the Crimea’, Daily News (8 October 1855); General J.
J. G. Cler, Souvenirs d’un Officier des Zouaves (Paris: Michel Lévy Fères, 1859), pp.
190-191; Joppé, ‘La
Campagne de Crimée’,
p. 223.
[112]
C. Robins, ed, Murder of a Regiment – A Crimean War officer’s journal (Bowdon:
Withycut House, 1994), p. 18.
[113]
Cardoza, Intrepid Women, pp. 148-149.
[114]
Young, Our camp, p. 156; ‘Grand Attack on the Russian Works’, Lloyd’s
Weekly Newspaper (24 June 1855); ‘The Story of the Campaign’, Glasgow
Herald (4 July 1855).
[115]Commandant
Devanlay, ‘Lettres de Crimée
du General Breton (2eme Partie)’, Carnet de la Sabretache, vol. (1909), pp. 196-197.
[116]
Money & Money, Our Tent, pp. 199-201.
[117]
‘The Poor Vivandière’, Lancaster Gazette (19 May 1855).
[118]
‘Soldier's Letter from the Crimea’, Bristol Mercury (19 May 1855).
[119]
E. B. Hamley, The story of the Campaign of Sebastopol (London: William Blackwood & Sons, 1855),
pp. 239 - 240.
[120]
A. W. Kinglake, The Invasion of the Crimea: Its origin and an Account
of its Progress down to the Death of Lord Raglan (London: Basil Blackwood,
1887), vol. 8, pp. 104-105. This was not just an example of Kinglake’s
hyperbole as Fanny Duberly recounts watching the same event accompanied by
General Bosquet.
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