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Intrepid Crusader: Ghénia Avril De Sainte- Croix Takes on the Prostitution Issue

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Intrepid Crusader: Ghénia Avril De Sainte- Croix Takes on the Prostitution Issue Intrepid Crusader: Ghénia Avril de Sainte- Croix Takes on the Prostitution Issue Karen Offen Stanford University The early French Third Republic was replete with energetic women – intellectuals, artists, journalists, actresses, teachers, organizers, feminists – who forged careers in public life. They actively operated as citizens, often without benefit of formal education and in every case without the vote. Most of them were well known in their time, even famous but have fallen (or been shoved) into oblivion in the historiography of the Third Republic. They deserve better than that. This article will explore the public career of one such woman. Ghénia Avril de Sainte-Croix (1855-1939) – to whom I will refer by her pen name, Savioz, or after her marriage in May 1900 as Mme Avril – was one of the six initial organizers of the Conseil National des Femmes Françaises (CNFF) in 1900-1901. She served it as secretary-general first under Sarah Monod then under Mme Jules Siegfried, whom she succeeded as president from 1922 until 1932. She was also extremely active in the International Council of Women (ICW), chairing its committee on the "'White Slave Traffic' and Equal Moral Standard" from 1904 on. She then served the ICW as vice president for several decades, working hand-in-glove with the longtime 352 Intrepid Crusader 353 president, Lady Aberdeen.1 From 1922 until 1936, Savioz also formally represented a coalition of international women's groups on the first advisory committee to the League of Nations devoted to examining and ending the international traffic in women and children in accordance with the international Convention of 1921. She was knowledgeable, outspoken, and an excellent organizer. By the mid-1920s, she was regarded as "the foremost feminist in France."2 In what follows, I will survey and analyze Savioz's particular contributions from the late 1890s into the early 1930s to three closely linked issues: (1) combating government-regulated prostitution, particularly in France, that is to say the licensing of prostitutes by the morals police who also officially sanctioned brothels; (2) working for economic alternatives and job training for down-and- out young women who were about to fall into prostitution, notably through her philanthropy, the Oeuvre Libératrice; and (3) seeking an end to the international traffic in women and children, not only in France, but globally through the Fédération abolitionniste internationale (FAI; also known as the International Abolitionist Federation, IAF), where she ran the French section in Paris, and at the League of Nations.3 Throughout this period Mme Avril addressed 1 Her earliest ICW committee reports along with her reports on CNFF activities in France can be consulted in International Council of Women, Report for 1905-1906 (1906) and Report for 1907-1908 (1908). 2 See my article "France's Foremost Feminist, or Who in the World is Madame Avril de Sainte-Croix?," Bulletin des Archives du Feminisme 9 (2005): 46-54. 3 The research for this article relies primarily on her many, scattered publications: articles in the press (many of which are preserved in a series of scrapbooks), speeches at congresses, published conference proceedings, brochures, and one book. I have worked over Volume 33 (2005) 354 Karen Offen these issues as an investigative reporter, issuing questionnaires and tabulating responses, participating actively in and reporting on national and international congresses of many organizations, and taking a lead role in formal commissions of inquiry at the national and international levels. Combating government-regulated prostitution This part of the story begins in Paris at the feminist congress of 1896, following which Savioz paid a visit to the Saint-Lazare prison with a group of other women. She was utterly appalled at what she saw. Shortly following the launch in late 1897 of the all-women's daily La Fronde by Marguerite Durand, Savioz published a series of three important articles, "Les Femmes à Saint-Lazare," and the sources available at the Bibliothèque Marguerite Durand (Paris) [hereafter BMD], the Musée Social (Paris), the Archives du Féminisme (Angers), the archives of the League of Nations (Geneva), the Hoover Institution (Stanford), and the papers of the International Council of Women at the Centre d'Archives pour l'histoire des femmes (CARHIF) (Brussels) [hereafter ICW-CARHIF]. I have unearthed and catalogued a number of shorter publications as well as collecting available photographs. To date (Aug. 2005), no single stash of personal archives has been located. However, copies of letters addressed to Mme Avril de Sainte-Croix seem to be scattered through various files in the BMD, e.g., those of Clémence Royer. A bigger problem has been to locate letters from Savioz to others. A truly comprehensive treatment of Mme Avril's contribution solely on the prostitution question would require a systematic scan of the publications and congress proceedings of numerous national and international organizations, including the FAI, founded 1875 and based in Geneva; the French section of the FAI, based in Paris; the International Society for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic; the Union Temporaire contre la Prostitution Reglementée et le Traite des Femmes (often referred to as the Union Temporaire), along with a multitude of women's associations besides the CNFF and ICW and also the records of the Oeuvre Libératrice. In this paper I have only skimmed the surface. Proceedings of the Western Society for French History Intrepid Crusader 355 followed them with a second set, "La Serve" ("the female serf"), in mid-January 1898.4 Later that year, she went to London for the congress of the International Abolitionist Federation (FAI/IAF). There she met the renowned English abolitionist Josephine Butler, the founder and spirit of the FAI, and was (as she later put it) "conquered by her goodness, her grace, by the way she incarnated purity and feminine softness."5 An incident that particularly impressed Savioz was Butler's heartfelt welcome at that 1898 congress to the exiled Louise Michel whom Savioz had taken to the congress at Michel's request, following their meeting at the home of the Russian anarchist prince, Kropotkin.6 Despite the deep contrast between Butler's Bible-based religiosity and Savioz's freethinking nature and their differing approaches to the label "feminist,"7 Butler 4 Savioz, "Les Femmes à Saint-Lazare," La Fronde 7, 8, 9 (15-16- 17 Dec. 1897), all appearing on p. 2, under the editorial rubric "La Tribune de La Fronde." These were followed by "La Serve," La Fronde 44, 45, 46 (21, 22, 23 Jan. 1898) and by "A l'Académie de Medecine," La Fronde 111 (30 Mar. 1898), concerning Dr. Laborde's proposal to suppress the government regulation of prostitution. See also her series on "La traite des blanches," in June and Sept. 1899 concerning the conferences in London and Geneva. 5 Tribute to Josephine Butler by G. Avril de Sainte-Croix on the centennial of Butler's birth in Bulletin abolitionniste, numéro spécial (Apr. 1928): 5-7. I am grateful to Anne Summers for this reference. Mme Avril was one of five designated speakers at the Geneva celebration of Butler's centennial. Her topic, "La Grande Croisade," emphasized the progress made in the 1920s alone. See the report from the Journal de Genève (19 Apr. 1928), BMD, Avril de Sainte-Croix [hereafter AdeSC] scrapbooks/clippings, microfilm reel 6. 6 Tribute to Josephine Butler. 7 In a letter to the Swiss feminist Emma Pieczynska, written from London, 7 Aug. 1900, Josephine Butler, referring to the Boer War, insisted that she was equally compassionate about injustice done to men (including those of the darker races) and to women. This, she said, partially explained "why I don't like the word 'feminist,' even if that Volume 33 (2005) 356 Karen Offen became not only a great role model for Savioz but also a close friend and mentor until Butler's death in 1906.8 Savioz returned to London in June 1899 to participate in an international congress on the White Slave Trade as well as a major feminist congress organized by the International Council of Women and chaired by Lady Aberdeen; that September she participated in the Geneva conference of the FAI, which she reported for La Fronde.9 It was there that she met a number of Swiss feminists such as Emma Pieczynska and Helene de Mulenin and again attracted the attention of Josephine Butler.10 At the International Congress on the Condition and Rights of Women, held in Paris in September during the Universal Exposition of 1900, Savioz (who had recently married the civil engineer François Avril) presented a seems unreasonable. I prefer the broader label abolitionist." Letter (evidently in the Bibliothèque Publique et Universitaire de Genève), quoted in Anne-Marie Käppelli, Sublime Croisade: Ethique et politique du féminisme protestant, 1875-1928 (Carouge-Geneva: Editions Zoé, 1990), 33. 8 See her tribute to Josephine Butler in the International Council of Women Report for 1907-1908, 62. From the evidence I have gathered to date, it appears that the Swiss-born Savioz fell heir to the mantle of the feisty Swiss-born Parisian Emilie de Morsier (1843-96), who had been active in the earliest campaigns of Butler's Fédération Continentale (subsequently the FAI). A key player in the Oeuvre des Liberées de Saint-Lazare, an organization dedicated to helping women released from prison, and organizer of the 1889 Congress on Oeuvres et Institutions féminines, Morsier was also involved (as, some say, was Savioz) in the Protestant-dominated Conférence de Versailles (founded 1891) and in Maria Deraismes' Société d'Amélioration. See Käppelli's chapter on Morsier in Sublime Croisade. 9 La Fronde, 24 Sept. 1899. 10 See two letters from Josephine Butler to her sister Hatty, enthusiastically praising Mlle de S.C.'s speech at the Geneva meeting of FAI, 1899, in the Butler collection at the Women's Library (formerly the Fawcett Library), London.
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