Jenny P. d’Héricourt

Black and Red Feminism

Jenny d’Héricourt, “Illinois” (FR) (1866)

February 15, 2024 Shawn P. Wilbur
If, through constant communications, through many stories, we know in France the morals and customs of that part of the United States that borders the Atlantic and which, as the first seat of colonization, mixes with the habits of democracy those of civilization European, this is not the case with the Western countries. There everything is new and follows not from the inspirations of tradition, but from the force of things and the demands of necessity. There, the genius of labor accomplished wonders, but with a strange and naive rustic quality. Large cities are improvised, ports are built, companies are founded and all the agitation of the large commercial centers gives way to the melancholic poetry of Indian solitude.

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Black and Red Feminism

Jenny P. d’Héricourt, “Philosophical Letters on Tolerance and the Critique of Hypotheses” (1863-64)

February 14, 2024 Shawn P. Wilbur
Lettres philosophiques sur la tolérance et la critique des hypothèses. (Première lettre.) Si quelque honorable du sexe barbu a surpris la suscription de la lettre que je reçois de vous, chère Madame, il n’a pas manqué de se dire in petto: Une Genevoise demandant à une Parisienne: Quelle couleur sera réputée de bon goût cet hiver? Quelle sera la forme la plus élégante des manteaux? Les crinolines conserveront-elles l’envergure qui a rendu nécessaire la presque démolition de Paris et l’élargissement de ses rues, élargissement si peu pittoresque et qui doit, un jour ou l’autre, multiplier les oculistes en multipliant les […]
Black and Red Feminism

Jenny P. d’Héricourt in the Messager Franco-Americain (1865-1869)

February 14, 2024 Shawn P. Wilbur
Now, what makes war possible and produces the disastrous results I am pointing out? A lack of equilibrium in social forces. Woman is one of these forces, and she has neither her place nor her liberty of action. If, as I believe, the government of women alone should be bad, it does not seem surprising to me that the government of men alone has produced what we see. It takes the equal influence of both sexes to produce balance, because they are equal by “difference” as much as by philosophically defined law.

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Black and Red Feminism

Jenny P. d’Héricourt, “La Femme affrancie / Woman Emancipated” — Volume II

July 31, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur
A daughter of my century, raised with the doctrines summarized by our glorious Revolution, I will not seek the sources of Right and Duty in the world of Supernaturalism. No. I will leave to the last echoes of the ancient world the irrational fantasy of using their argumentation, based on the unknown, to prove that Right is granted and Duty imposed by some God. On the contrary, I say that both have their origins within us; that they result from the ensemble of our faculties, from our destiny, from the necessary relations that sustain us with ourselves, with our fellows, and with nature.

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Black and Red Feminism

Jenny P. d’Héricourt in “The Agitator” (1869)

December 16, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur
Bibliography: Jenny P. d’Héricourt, “Woman’s Rights in France,” The Agitator 1 no. 8 (May 1, 1869): 1. La Femme, “Madame Jenny P. d’Héricourt,” The Agitator 1 no. 9 (May 8, 1869): 6. Jenny P. d’Héricourt, [letter], The Agitator 1 no. 14 (June 12, 1869): 8. Jenny P. d’Héricourt, “Morality According to the Sexes,” The Agitator 1 no. 16 (June 26, 1869): 1. Jenny P. d’Héricourt, “Ernestine L. Rose,” The Agitator 1 no. 17 (July 3, 1869): 2. Jenny P. d’Héricourt, “Woman’s Rights in France,” The Agitator 1 no. 18 (July 10, 1869): 1. WOMAN’S RIGHTS IN FRANCE LETTER FROM MADAME […]
The Sex Question

Jenny P. d’Héricourt, “Woman Emancipated” — Volume I (1860)

January 1, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur
[translation in progress] [one_half padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] LA FEMME AFFRANCHIE RÉPONSE A MM. MICHELET, PROUDHON, É. DE GIRARDIN, A. COMTE ET AUX AUTRES NOVATEURS MODERNES PAR Mme. JENNY P. D’HÉRICOURT TOME 1 1860 [/one_half][one_half_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] WOMAN EMANCIPATED RESPONSE TO MICHELET, PROUDHON, É. DE GIRARDIN, A. COMTE AND OTHER MODERN INNOVATORS BY Mme. JENNY P. D’HÉRICOURT VOLUME 1 1860 [/one_half_last] [one_half padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] A MES LECTEURS, A MES ADVERSAIRES, A MES AMIS A MES LECTEURS Lectrices et lecteurs, le but de cet ouvrage et les motifs qui me l’ont fait entreprendre, je vais vous les […]
correspondence

Jenny P. d’Héricourt, “A letter from America” (1868)

January 17, 2014
[I’ve been working on the remaining untranslated portions of Jenny d’Héricourt’s Woman Affranchised, which has included a number of pleasant surprises, including some borrowings from her adversary Proudhon that suggest she was a close and careful reader of much of his work. I also made another search through the online archives for material I hadn’t seen and ran across this letter to La Solidarité: journal des principes, a journal published by Charles Fauvety, who was both a friend of Héricourt and an old collaborator of Proudhon’s. Fauvety was also indirectly connected, through association with Alphonse-Louis Constant, aka Eliphas Lévi, with […]
The Sex Question

“La Frondeuse” zine, Issues 3 & 4

August 20, 2012
The Black and Red Feminism zine has been reborn as La Frondeuse [The Troublemaker, or The Anti-Authoritarian.] The name is borrowed from one of Séverine’s collections. Issue 3 features works by Louise Michel, Paule Mink and Séverine. Issue 4 contains works by Jenny d’Héricourt under various pen-names. The name-change comes with a bit of fancy repackaging, and will be retroactive. I’ll be revising and repackaging the material from the two issues of Black and Red Feminism as issues of La Frondeuse, and a number of titles from the old Corvus catalog will be expanded and revised in uniform editions. With […]
fiction

Jenny P. d’Hericourt (as Félix Lamb), “The Valain Family” (1847)

August 1, 2012
The Valain Family. It was January 7; the winter was cold and foggy; the icy north wind roared around the ancient buildings of old Paris blew off the snow, which, like a white shroud, covered their dome. The inhabitant of the sumptuous hotel, dressed in silk, cashmere andfur, stretched idly on the duvet, and a warm and fragrant atmosphere, watched the sparks that outlined the rich mantelpiece of his fireplace twinkle, all while savoring the exquisite wines and delicate dishes served in their fancy dishes. He waited in a sweet indolence for the night to bring his the pleasures of […]