The Electoral Committee, the first incarnation of the Patriotic League of French Women (LPDF)

6The women’s association was established primarily to collect funds for the 1902 elections and to create a religious bloc to counter the Republican bloc led by Waldeck-Rousseau. The main goal was to oppose secularization as it was conceived by the radical elite. Although the women’s association claimed to be apolitical, it was set up as the female branch of a political party: the liberal and conservative Action libérale populaire (ALP). The first chaplain of the LPDF, the Jesuit Régis Pupey-Girard, wrote about the climate of electoral competition that surrounded the LPDF’s creation and explained the intervention of women in the electoral race. The Parisian committee was created by Jacques Piou, the deputy founder of the ALP in May 1902, and Jules Lemaître, the president of the Ligue de la Patrie française [League of the French Fatherland], which was moribund at the time. [11]

7

“A group of Parisian Ladies was looking for a way to help the men save the country, and they had the idea of taking a collection to support the election of good candidates. After having received full approval from the Ven. Card. Richard, they were seeking to organize themselves when they learned that a League with this exact goal had just been created in Lyon, and they joined it immediately.” [12]

8The role of Jesuits, just like that of the Mother Superior of the société des Filles de Marie [13] [Society of the Daughters of the Heart of Mary], Mademoiselle Faivre, has been deliberately downplayed. In fact, the Parisian committee of the League of French Women was created at the initiative of the Provincial of the Society of Jesus (Compagnie de Jésus), [14] the Archbishop of Paris, and the Mother Superior, and at the request of the Catholic rallié [15] candidates who were worried about the financing of their campaigns in the 1902 general elections. Following these elections, which were a failure for Catholics, the Parisian committee split off, first taking the name Liberal Patriotic League of French Women, then in July 1902, the Patriotic League of French Women-Popular Liberal Action. The first members of the board were Daughters of the Heart of Mary or those close to the politicians of the ALP.

9The association developed rapidly, leaning on pre-existing networks of Catholic women and children’s associations and aided by a clergy that favored the women’s apostolic mission. [16] It recruited its leaders from the Daughters of the Heart of Mary and the aristocracy. The need to integrate representatives of the industrial and commercial bourgeoisie was clear from the very first meetings. [17] The Baroness Geneviève Reille (1844-1910), a conference organizer [18] for and founder of the LPDF, wife of the deputy-senator René Reille and mother of Amédée and Xavier Reille, both deputies of the ALP, spelled out this necessity very clearly. A circular explicitly mentioned the question of financial and human resources: in order to found a committee, it recommended “drawing a number of rich people to the organization and recruiting numerous members to the LPDF”. [19] Baroness Reille even specified the social composition of an effective local committee: “5 people from the aristocracy, 5 from the bourgeoisie, 5 from trade, and 5 from the working class”. [20] The aristocracy was deliberately overrepresented, as were the presumably more monied business and middle-class milieus.

10Within the association, the members who gave 25 francs in annual dues or who gave at least 500 francs were distinguished from the members who paid one franc a year in dues. By way of comparison, membership dues for the French section of the Second International were 0.25 franc per year in 1906. [21] The leaders of the LPDF intended, from its establishment, to rely on a social and religious elite – aristocrats and the ordained – to create a mass women’s movement in order to spread the influence of the Church among voters. Social work constituted a useful way of attracting women from the working classes and tying their membership to a range of services based on the model of workers’ organizations. [22] The association presented itself as a self-help organization for women, aiming to acquire a vast membership as a result of its services.

11Starting in 1906, tensions within the central leadership appeared between the Daughters of the Heart of Mary who considered that electoral activities overstepped their religious mandate, and those who wanted to continue the electoral work. The Baroness de Brigode was forced to resign from the presidency. She was replaced by Baroness Reille who, while submitting to the pontifical directives of 1907 that forbade women’s electoral involvement, [23] nevertheless continued to finance elections unofficially. The election of Pius X in 1903 led to changes in the position of the hierarchy. The separation of Church and State in 1905 and the electoral failure of 1906 seemed to prove right those Catholics who saw electoral activities as an unreliable strategy for winning France back for God. It was also at this time that the anti-modernist offensive began: it targeted liberals, including the LPDF because of its alliance with Jacques Piou’s ALP. [24] During the Congress of Lourdes in 1907, the secretary of state for Pius X, Cardinal Merry del Val, asked the League members to remain strictly on religious and social terrain and to definitively abandon electoral work. Ties with the ALP were officially broken, and the Patriotic League dropped that part of their name. Nevertheless, occasional financial support continued (albeit in a more discreet manner), especially when ALP candidates were in trouble. [25]

The rules of the electoral game

17The boundaries of legitimate political activity have been a stumbling block for Catholics since the Revolution.

18The extension of the right to vote in 1848 resulted in a theological reformulation concerning Catholics’ participation in the democratic regime. [33] The ralliement to the Republic was imposed by the top of the Church hierarchy. Nevertheless, electoral activity, as a corollary to democracy and political liberalism, remained tied to partisan divisions. Pope Leo XIII, in his encyclicals, insisted on the role of the head-voter of the family as vital to the restoration of a Christian society which would come to pass as much through good voting as by the Christian education of children. This Catholic representation of democracy portrayed a strict sexual division of political roles: men were in charge of the elaboration of laws and of government, and women were in charge of teaching customs, which would provide stronger and more efficient means of bringing the earthly social order into conformity with Christian principles.

19During the elections of 1904 in Italy, Pope Pius X weakened the non expedit in order to facilitate victory in the face of socialist and ministerial candidates suspected of anticlericalism. This non expedit had been pronounced by Pope Pius IX after the ultimate unitary territorial conquest: the taking of Rome in 1870 in order to make it the capital of Italy. It was pronounced by the religious court of the Apostolic Penitentiary a few years after the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy (1866), in order to keep Catholics away from what was considered as an impious regime. The electoral reform of 1912 forced the Catholic hierarchy once again to redefine its position in regards to suffrage: if all Italians were called to the ballot box, could the Catholics abstain? The Gentiloni pact, named after the leader of the Catholic Voting Union, authorized Catholic candidates to present themselves as such for legislative elections.

20Under the Italian regime’s censitary suffrage system, that also required voters to be educated, [34] women seem not to have been included in the electoral body according to a “family census”, which is reminiscent of the system of male censitary suffrage found in France from 1830 to 1848. This put these female citizens in the same situation as less wealthy and less educated male citizens. [35] It was the rich or educated male head of the family, representing his household, who was the voter. Elections were conceived of on two levels: political/national and administrative/ local, where the political competition was more open since male Catholic citizens could participate. The non expedit limited the participation of Catholic male voters to campaigning and to the creation of parties that would support Catholics. As long as male suffrage was “restrained”, and the Roman Question was not resolved, [36] Catholics found political expression in the different structures of political parties whose primary aim was not to take power through elections. [37] Catholics, like socialists, privileged local politics and involvement in community groups. [38] Unable to vote and largely uninterested in elections, these passive citizens mobilized outside the electoral arena in order to make their political claims heard. [39]

21The two national contexts, therefore, placed women citizens in seemingly similar positions: they could not vote, but for different reasons. [40] In the French context of universal suffrage and ralliement, but also at a time when parties were structuring the political landscape, the Church hierarchy needed to rely on women to help influence male voters. The Catholic hierarchy presented the absence of the franchise for women as the condition which enabled organized Catholic women to overcome partisan cleavages: women would realize the unity that men could not since they were not embedded in party politics. [41] In both cases, there was no question of a direct vote for women. But the limits of the prohibition differed depending on national political configurations.

Effects of the local context on conceptions of collective action

22In the context of the coordination of women’s claims shortly after 1900, the Woman Question and that of suffrage seemed to gain a foothold in some Catholic circles in the region of Milan. [42] More specifically, Italian Catholic women like Adelaide Coari and Luisa Anzoletti advocated greater civil, economic and political equality between men and women in line with the Christian democratic project. [43] Three factors made Milan the center of Christian feminism: it was an industrial city where a bourgeois and cultured female elite was present on the social terrain, where political forces organized according to the framework of the modern democratic system, and consequently, where Catholic males were receptive to Christian democracy.

23The feminist Congress of Milan, held in 1907 and promoted by Adelaide Coari and Sabina Parravicino’s Fascio democratico-cristiano femminile (a feminist group that aimed to bring together Catholic Christian-Democrats), elaborated a modest feminist agenda in line with other feminist secular groups in Milan. Included in the program was discussion about the vote, as well as equal pay and the access of women to occupations and professions, all signifying the openness to modernity found among these Milanese Christian feminists. Their agenda differed from that of their male religious counterparts, however, in how they understood the Woman Question and in their emphasis on women’s work and supposedly feminine qualities. This Christian feminist movement was rapidly marginalized. The Pope twice showed his willingness to bring to heel any attempt to reconcile feminism and Catholicism: first came the nomination of Elena Persico, who was close to the pontifical line, to the head of the Milanese Catholic magazine L’Azione muliebre in 1904 in order to combat the influence of Adelaide Coari; then came the choice to name Dominican tertiary Cristina Giustiniani Bandini as President of the UDCI. The claim for administrative (municipal) suffrage clearly constituted the most important breaking point between orthodox Catholics and those suspected of modernist sensibilities. [44] This movement thus suffered the same fate as that of the Christian democrats in the Opera dei Congressi, [45] permanently preventing Catholic women from intervening in national political competitions.

24Just as in the Milanese case, Catholic and local electoral configurations in France influenced the establishment of the LPDF and its views. While holding the rallié line on a national scale, some local committees were able to openly support the Ligue d’Action française [League for French Action]. [46] This was notably the case in the Le Mans committee, founded with the help of Madame Havard de la Montagne, wife of a journalist for Action française. The Marquise Madeleine Leclercq de Juigné, heir of the Schneider industrial dynasty, assumed control of the group in 1908 and supported the political career of her husband who was elected deputy of the Loire-Inférieure in 1906 and opposed Action libérale populaire. The papal condemnation of L’Action française in 1926 provided an opportunity to formulate the positions of local LPDF committees and to expose tensions concerning what political line they would adopt. [47]

Distinguishing themselves from secular feminists

25As a result of a radical government offensive in France and a liberal government in Italy, the Catholic Church, attached to the traditional gender hierarchy where men and the values associated with them were dominant, nonetheless yielded to accommodate certain women. These women, who based their claims for autonomous organization on the qualities associated with their sex (defenders of virtue, instruments of family regeneration, devotees of order), saw themselves called to the mission of defending the Church and other women. The organization of Catholic women happened at the same time as, and was inherently related to, the organization of feminist women within the Conseil national des femmes françaises [National Council of French Women] and the National Council of Italian Women (CNDI). [48] These latter two federations promoted civil equality between the sexes, the right to vote, the right to work, and were associated with secularism. [49] The main difficulty for the organized Catholics was to distinguish themselves from these “bad” feminists, in order to assert that “true feminism” can only be Christian. [50] This is what Baroness Reille, President of the LPDF from 1906 to 1910, claimed:

26

“They will treat us as eccentric women who busy themselves with politics; they will say that we are feminists. Concerning politics, we do not want to be part of it; it is too far beneath us! As for feminism, may God keep us from upending the order established by him! We accept and we love our role as women; we only ask to be devoted auxiliaries; but because men are failing in their task and our prayers are no longer sufficient, we shall unite to fight and to win.” [51]

27Reclaiming the gender hierarchy, the Baroness nevertheless specifies situations where women can accomplish activities considered masculine. The weakness of men in public affairs makes necessary the intervention of “strong women”, of “virile Christian women” who will compensate for the failing men. This discourse is close to the Christian feminism founded in France by Marie Maugeret in 1896. An anti-Dreyfusard [52] who was anxious to gain the support of the Catholic hierarchy, Marie Maugeret brought together several hundred people in her Parisian movement. This movement distinguished itself from other Catholic groups by its promotion of women’s suffrage and its nationalism. [53] She also organized the Joan of Arc Conference every year, where the League of French Women, the Patriotic League of French Women, and other Catholic groups were represented.

28In Italy, opposition to Masonic feminism was theorized by the president and communicated in her conferences. [54] The true roots of feminism were found, according to her, in Christianity, which had freed women as well as men.

29If the need of Catholic women’s groups to assert their differences from feminism as it was defined by national organizations affiliated with the International Council of Women was so pressing, this is because of the strong competition between the Catholics and feminist groups in the domain of social reform. The uniqueness of Catholic groups was in the creation of social work projects anchored in a charitable tradition, with an apostolic purpose. [55] What lay behind this social action for both associations was the idea that the restoration of a Christian society would not come about primarily by way of voting, but through social work. [56] In the French case, social action could also lead as far as indirect entrance into electoral competition, as happened within the Conservative party in Britain; [57] without going as far as demanding the vote, however, because the League members saw their political action as guided by a belief in the complementarity between women’s and men’s work.

30Catholic hierarchy and the organization of women: between patriarchal tradition and pragmatism

31Politics was defined by the Catholic hierarchy – and more generally by the politicians of the time – as an activity that was, before all else, masculine. The sudden growth of women’s organizations for collective action, which had been accepted under Pope Leo XIII, was not so clearly encouraged under his successor Pius X, who was dedicated to fighting modernism within and outside the Church. Needing to address the development of a modernist trend first in France and then in Italy, he was reluctant to see the rise of collective action by women which was intended to intervene in public affairs, as the founder of the UDCI states in her manuscript on the history of the UDCI.

32

“The Holy Father… has shown himself to be against all women’s organizations and good-naturedly added in his charming Venetian dialect, ‘Woman: may she please, may she stay quiet and may she remain in the home’.
I replied that, certainly, this would be more convenient, but when women have become a target, as seen in the interest shown by the [Masonic] faction in this first [feminist] Congress [in Rome], and some of the statements made by notorious masons, it becomes necessary for us, Catholic women, not only to defend ourselves, but to look after and save our imprudent sisters who are in danger.” [58]

33The Roman aristocrat therefore mobilized her social and religious connections to persuade the Roman Curia. She intended, with the support of the Pope, to create a power struggle that would be favorable to Catholic women as opposed to secular and socialist feminists, but that would also disadvantage the Christian feminists brought together under the Milanese Women’s Federation. Thus, in the name of the defense of the Church itself, certain women who possessed significant social capital managed to destabilize the gender hierarchy at the heart of the Catholic institution, without questioning power relations explicitly or assertively. [59]

34The argument about imminent danger convinced the Pope of the necessity of allowing these women to defend themselves in order to spread the influence of the Church and to bring the wandering sheep back to orthodoxy. And who better to create a rampart against the Masonic offensive than activists driven by faith in the struggle? The argument about a unique female “nature” was deployed here to enable, right within the heart of the Church, the constitution of these “female phalanxes” that were rising to haul up the banner of the Church and save the endangered fatherland.

The risks of political labeling

35One of the major issues for conservative women’s mobilization was how collective action by Catholic women might be deemed acceptable or unacceptable. In the context of the Pope’s attempts to discipline Christian democracy (notable examples including the dissolution of the Opera dei Congressi in Italy and the dissolution of Sillon [60] in France in 1910), being labeled as political meant encountering disapproval and criticism. But, depending on whether you were a Catholic in Rome or Milan, or in Paris or the Vendée, political meant different things. The search for approval from the Catholic hierarchy of new forms of apostolate among organized Catholics was part of the struggle to define legitimate activism.

36For the leaders of the LPDF, the women who disobeyed pontifical directives were those who chose the royalist camp, where one put “politics first”. The association signed onto the efforts of Albert de Mun and Jacques Piou to create a large gathering of moderate Catholics in France, following the example of the German political party Zentrum. [61] As the new president elect, Viscomtesse de Vélard stated, the “female politicians” were monarchists because they contested the Republican regime and the pontifical line of the Ralliement. Political divisions, i.e. party politics, were not accepted in relation to the fundamental principles of the organization of power. To discuss different regime types would be equivalent to questioning the conciliatory politics of Leo XIII and, moreover, be contrary to the liberal or rallié Catholics in France. This opinion is clear in the letter the president sent to her mother, a League member, on 3 July 1910. She explained her refusal to unite with the Marquise de Mac-Mahon’s Action Française, despite the Marquise’s presence in the LPDF since its inception, because “Madame de M[ac] M[ahon] is the leader of a political group. She announces it loudly; her goal is to reestablish the monarchy”. [62] The accusation of “doing politics” amounted to discrediting the militant actions of royalist women, which questioned the attempts to organize Catholics within Action Libérale populaire. Women’s political organizing thus appeared to be out of line with Church hierarchy, and all the initial work of women’s associations was essentially an effort to legitimize their existence while avoiding being labeled “political” activists.

37Being labeled as political also served to delegitimize Catholic women’s action in Italy. The president defended herself against this, playing on the meaning of the term.

38

“Only in religion, in the Church and with the Church, will we, Italian women, be able to attain all our providential ends and raise ourselves […] to the highest peaks of moral and civic life. Is it political, the divine mission of the Catholic Church? We will be openly with the Catholic Church, even at the cost of appearing to be what our adversaries accuse us of being.” [63]

39The leaders of the UDCI were “intransigent”, in other words, they did not endorse any compromise with modernity and liberalism. For Italian Catholic women who were close to Christian Democracy or even liberal, the UDCI’s hard line position was judged to be too partisan, too close to the pope’s views, and closed off to democracy; it was consequentially a source of conflict about Catholic women’s position within the Kingdom of Italy. This conflict put into question the way in which Catholicism was tied to national belonging in the context of tension between the pope and the leaders of the Kingdom of Italy. [64]

40The president of the UDCI deflected the stigma by accusing promoters of women’s suffrage of being “political”. It was therefore the liberal Catholics, those accused of promoting modernism, who were guilty of political actions. Indeed, the pontifical rule of Pius X was marked by the growing intensity of the fight against modernism. [65] The question of applying historical frameworks to the interpretation of religious texts quickly spilled beyond intellectual and religious circles to spread into aspects of social life in Italy more widely. And yet, among the promoters of Americanism and modernism in Italy was the countess Sabina Parravicino Thaon di Revel (1865-1944). This Catholic who was supportive of democratic ideas was the translator of writings by bishops from the dioceses of the East coast of the United States, which encouraged secularists and the clergy to work with neutral or Protestant organizations to face the “social question” and oppose the worker’s movement. [66] She worked with progressive Catholic magazines and wanted to bring Catholics and feminists together. Corriere della Sera’s publication in April 1914 of her correspondence with her spiritual director, Cardinal Rampolla, archbishop of Milan and former secretary of state of Pope Leo XIII, provoked the ire of the Roman president: the letters, tinged with modernism, liberalism and the contestation of papal authority, earned her “excommunication” by the president and her resignation in 1914.

41Thus, the difficulties a political label posed for women’s associations who were opposed to the principles and practices of feminist activism, led to multiple re-appropriations of the term “political”. If “political” was identified as masculine, the comparison between France and Italy shows us that, depending on the type of Catholicism, and national (if not local) political party configuration, the term could indicate activism engaged in by traditionalist Catholics just as much as activism led by more liberal Catholics.

Reconquest by language: The Dominican influence on the UDCI

43The Italian association, created and led by a Dominican woman, maintained from her original order a characteristic of friar preachers: it was thus by language and by culture that the UDCI would lead “the wandering sheep back to the flock”. The activism of the UDCI rested on the idea that all authority comes from God. Contrary to modernism, one must restore all to Christ and usher in his reign on earth through rigorous religious practice and the conformity of the laws of man with divine law. [67] This vulgate was spread by means of bulletins and more importantly by the conferences of the indefatigable Cristina Giustiniana Bandini. In February of 1910, l’Azione cattolica femminile, the bulletin for the leaders of the Unione femminile cattolica, and for adherents to the UDCI, published a text that summarized the apostolic mission of Italian Catholic women and defined legitimate political practice for these women. As the association primarily intended to impart a spiritual and moral education, “it aimed to bring together Italian women in order to reaffirm their profession of the Catholic faith, to help them spread a sound culture adapted to the mission of the Christian woman, and to make more efficient and practical, and more adapted to the necessities of the time, the work to which woman is dedicated, in the field of religion, charity, and social work. [68]

44Showing a certain pragmatism regarding the need for the Church to respond in a modern way to the issues of a democratic and industrial society, the president clarified the goals for female Catholic activism. The UDCI essentially defined its main vocation as bringing together Italian Catholic women to help them accomplish their divine mission and their apostolate work in a suitable way for their times. The Union urged a large gathering of Catholic Italian women, provided that they shared this “virile” faith that animated the spirits of the elite. In calling on the natural community of women and the fatherland, the president used a theme of “similarity” to mobilize Catholic women. She thus proposed to Catholic women that they widen the terrain of their apostolate work, calling for them to bring the city of man into conformity with the city of God through religious education and works.

45In this manner, women’s political activism was acceptable since it was understood not as divisive partisan activity, but rather as the action of Christian women extending the influence of the Church to all parts of social life. It was a way of undermining the presumption of partisanship associated with politics that threatened the legitimacy of women’s Catholic activism.

46

“The good Christian cannot remain indifferent to the atheism of the state that governs: if he has the power, he must put himself to work so that his faith is not maligned, but everywhere respected and represented sincerely – in municipalities, in Parliaments, in offices, in chambers of commerce, in charity congregations. We need to make the efficiency of our faith felt everywhere, if we have a living faith. Is it the faith of a political party? It is the ancient faith of our martyrs and our mothers who inspire our whole agenda.”

47The exercise of power was not, therefore, achieved by choosing representatives but rather by direct involvement in all institutions where social and/or economic power was held. But this evolution, this re-appropriation of modernity could only happen if it was anchored in the religious practice of women. Thus, the president recalls here female Christian martyrs, ancient mothers, mothers of the fatherland, and mothers of the Church who also harken back to a time when women could baptize and when they were freed from ancient slavery, because Christ had made them the equal of men in the eyes of God. [69]

Positions regarding suffrage

A gendered repertoire of action?

55To understand the way in which these conservative women tried to change laws and impose on France their conception of public debate without ever casting a ballot, an analysis of their action repertoire in light of their gender proves interesting. [76] That is to say that the ensemble of methods used to act collectively was constrained by the inegalitarian representation system that excluded women from democratic political representation, as well as by the social affiliations of members within this group. To be legitimate, the collective action of Catholic women needed to re-appropriate actions performed by men, whilst distinguishing themselves from the activism of feminists and socialist women.

56What, then, was specific to the “repertoire of conservative women’s activism”? Like men, they used “methods of autonomous activism different from those the authorities made use of”, but while excluding (for example) all recourse to public authority or force, they defended their interest in an associative framework. This associative framework was not only used by women; but while men had a wider range of collective organizational forms available to them, associative politics became practically the sole form of mobilization for women.

57They challenged the authorities over Republican secular politics by proposing the maternal and educational functions that they considered specifically feminine. The first petition written by Catholic women that collected several million signatures was taken to the President of the Republic’s wife, Madame Loubet, by the leader of the LPDF in 1901. During discussions in the Chamber on 13 May 1905, Mademoiselle Frossard presented the work carried out by the League during the Joan of Arc Conference. In just a couple weeks, the League had already gathered more than 525,000 signatures, 30,000 coming from Toulouse and 25,000 from Brittany. [77] They would have four million signatures by the time of the vote on the law of 1905.

58They held gatherings where they outlined their programs. But these gatherings sometimes seemed more like a salon than a public meeting. “The public presentation of the program” was accomplished via pamphlets, the press, or advertisement in the streets.

59Street demonstrations, less frequent but more spectacular, were part of the new activities performed by these conservative women. The first important demonstration was held in July 1902 in Paris, and according to the ALP and the LPDF, they brought together 50,000 people. Presented as the “mothers of the family” demonstration, it was a way for the conservatives to create a power struggle by using a routine tactic from the labor movement’s repertoire of collective action. The leaders of the LPDF claimed responsibility for not “leaving the street to the Apaches”. [78] In this way, they re-appropriated the labor movement’s preferred place for public expression. [79]

60This discourse was absent from the men’s association allied with the LPDF, which did not want to place itself on the same battleground as the men of its rival party. The demonstration at the Place de la Concorde was legitimate because it was women who had organized it. Activists in ALP did not use this style of activism, but preferred lobbying, a kind of propaganda that was more in line with the elite circles to which they belonged. [80] Because aristocrats within the LPDF were women, they escaped the need to distinguish themselves from other classes, and could, when necessary, use techniques of the labor movement to provoke a power struggle. The patronage of Joan of Arc, which enabled them to assume the role of the female combatant against “partisan politics” by drawing from history this model of a female warrior who could justify their activism, protected them against the accusation of breaking into the male world of combative tactics and action. But, in this time of supposedly “universal” suffrage, the pamphlet and the ballot had replaced the swords. And the staging of a crowd could aid in creating a power struggle with government. Attentive to labor movement mobilization and the methods used by “masonic” feminists to spread their influence, the leaders of the LPDF did not shirk away from demonstrations that, in order to work, needed to remain the exception rather than the norm.

61The demonstration was open to both men and women. The aristocratic women wore hats, which created a stunning sight. Even though men were present, it was the “mothers” who were the focal point. [81]

62In addition to these “classic” actions, the women of the LPDF engaged in two particular activities with specifically gendered associations: the use of influence and the fight against electoral fraud. This is not to say that the mobilization of networks or the policing of electoral fraud were monopolized by Catholic women. [82] But these actions were legitimated within the LPDF because they corresponded to contemporary gender norms and expected feminine behavior. From the distribution of ballots to the announcement of poll results, women could participate in some of the activities that take place during the different stages of electoral competition. [83] The challenge for the associations was to legitimate the participation of Catholic women in activities related to the vote, activities that were normally performed by men.

Illustration 1

Demonstration by the “Mothers of the family”

Demonstration by the “Mothers of the family”

Cleaning the electoral lists

70Another activity said to be legitimate and becoming for women: the cleaning-up of political life through the fight against electoral fraud (from the point of view of the League members this meant at the prefectoral level) and the marshalling of electors. The electoral report given during the Congress of 1906 by the Baroness de Boury, in charge of the Press Section of the LPDF, offers a glimpse into the electoral knowhow of some League members.

71

“I am persuaded that all of our press efforts will be useless from the point of view of the elections if we do not manage to revise the electoral lists. Our press delegates can already help with this by categorizing all who receive good and bad newspapers where they live; in the cities, it is more difficult, but I know however one zealous woman who, in 1902, in one single neighborhood of Paris, succeeded in having 1,200 names removed from the list which shouldn’t have been on it. I also know that in Nantes, the same strategy met with success. In Marseille, we all know the results achieved four years ago in the municipal elections by revising the lists. I could also cite a Parisian outskirt where, this year, several thousand voters were crossed off, which allowed us to fight with a chance of success. » [89]

Illustration 2

The sexual division of electoral labor

The sexual division of electoral labor

72This report, which at first glance did not focus on electoral work, recollected the electoral work of the League members. Since 1902, the women had seized the democratic institution, “grooming” the electoral lists even though no women appeared on them, and distributing propaganda for “good candidates”. The electoral manuals given to ALP activists were also distributed to the LPDF, and they explained the workings of the electoral system. [90] Local committees of the LPDF called upon the most zealous women parishioners to find out who the good and bad voters were. They established a methodical voter classification system, which relied on the information obtained by the dizanière [zealous militants who supervised ten association members] or the dame de quartier [women paid to supervise the propaganda work in their neighborhood], classified according to the type of newspaper families read and their attendance to religious duties. They then verified registrations on the electoral lists and pointed out instances of fraud. The electoral code stipulated that all citizens could obtain a copy of the electoral lists, but that only voters had the right to make complaints about them. The Press Section, who had instituted the systematic and methodical surveillance of the neighborhoods, was the place to learn how to conduct this important work of updating electoral lists. It worked with voters associations to make the men do what the electoral code forbade them from doing as women.

73The cleaninig-up of political life, by women who felt themselves to be more virtuous and naturally talented at ordering and putting order into public life, took a very concrete form here. The existence of this activity was confirmed by the Sûreté générale who stated that “In sum, we never before saw such a rousing of the electoral body in Marseille, especially in circles that were hostile to socialists”. [91] The number of registered voters increased. In the constituency of Nantes, Mademoiselle de Beaulieu, a conference organizer, indicated that “Our propaganda and the revision of electoral lists that we brought about in a district where there was ‘a blocard candidate’ [blocard being a pejorative term for candidates from the Republican bloc] helped to a certain degree in taking 5,000 votes from him.” [92] In the Lotet-Garonne department, where Mademoiselle Forcade presided over the committee, the LPDF “had frequently been the coffer that facilitated, through pamphlets or posters, responses to slander against the Catholic candidate; and which inundated every home with a beautiful pastoral letter on the serious and present duty of the French voter”. [93]

74Electoral activity did not only aim to promote good candidates, but also to ensure that the vote would unfold in the desired way by purging the electoral lists of voters unduly registered, and privileging the registration of good voters. The externalization of these tasks to unpaid female volunteers was part of a sexual division of political labor in a modern democracy that was reminiscent of the division of roles within the English Primrose League. [94] This sexual division of electoral work was not found in Italy where the male Catholic electoral committees did not exist because of the non expedit, and where the situation of the UDCI – in the midst of a traditionalist turn – prevented Catholic activists from getting too close to the ballot box.

75*

76* *

77Through this Franco-Italian comparison, two national models of female engagement can be identified: depending on the structure of the political terrain and how the Catholic men were organized in the political competition, the women’s groups organized under the leadership of the clergy did not use the same collective action strategies. The French League members, close to Catholic men who had entered into politics, used a conservative female repertoire of collective action that both borrowed modern techniques to win votes, and conformed to “feminine” activities. Yet the Italian political and religious context did not leave room for such electoral intervention by Catholic women. They were close to the Catholic Electoral Union, which did not aim for electoral victories but rather the education of Catholic citizens. These national patterns, set out here in broad terms, become more complex when the level of comparison is no longer national (two-dimensional), but local, or at the level of the feminist and women’s groups themselves. The Catholic women’s organizations were opposed to secular feminists and proposed a model of collective action that was complementary to the collective action of their male religious counterparts. While the association of Italian women, marked by traditionalism, proposed methods of collective action that were strongly anchored in a traditional political repertoire – reliant on the patron-client relationship, but starting to become national in outlook – the association of French women recommended strategies to its members that borrowed from modern mobilization techniques. In the name of complementarity, the conservative women of the LPDF re-appropriated the activist methods of the labor movement: demonstrations in the street and the entitlement of members to a range of social support services for women (a mutual insurance system, compensation for women following childbirth, daycare for children, job placement assistance, etc.). The men of the ALP, however, could not legitimately use these methods because such methods were central to their political rivals, labor movements and Action française (condemned by two popes for its resort to street violence).

78The stance of these associations changed with the First World War. The participation of Catholics in the governments of the Union sacrée, [95] the accession of a “democratic” Pope in 1914, and the part women played in the war effort all ultimately legitimated claims for women’s suffrage. The right to vote became a conceivable means of action for the LPDF in 1919 and for the UDCI in 1917. Thus began an era of civic preparation for Catholic French and Italian women that would be quickly ended in Italy and abandoned in France in 1933 when the LPDF merged with the League of French Women.