Wives of refugees, refugee women in 19th century France (1830-1870)

Abstract

The article addresses the role played by foreign women considered as “étrangers réfugiés” by the French administration from the Monarchy of July until the end of the Second Empire. After the Three Glorious Days, a series of European political emigrations contributed to increase the number of foreigners that the French goverment treated as “refugees”: Italian, Spanish and Portuguese liberals, Poles of the “Great Emigration”, but also Spanish Carlists who crossed the border throughout the first Carlist war.
Our study will try to analyse how the French administration privileged the recognition of the title of “refugee” to the only men, household heads, discarding their women who were nevertheless numerous. Isolated women, single women or widows in exile represented a separate group that received peculiar attention. How, in the absence of adult men in their environment, did they manage to be designated and recognised as refugees? To what extent did the French administration develop the idea of vulnerability for them? We will show the role that these women have been able to play in relations with the French administration and with local society.